February 27, 2007 (Savannah Morning News)- A state Senate bill calls for a program to educate expecting parents on the benefits of donating umbilical cord blood to stem cell research.
MORE PARENTS might decide to donate the stem cells from their babies' umbilical cord blood if they knew the procedure was free, easy and could save lives.
That's the aim of state Senate Bill 148, which would establish a statewide education and awareness program...
February 16, 2007 (physorg.com)- People with paralysis can stand and move without a wheelchair. They can operate computers to read email and play video games. Brown University neuroscientist John Donoghue said these recent achievements are previews of a major promise of neurotechnology – restoring movement control and communication to people immobilized by injury or disease...
By Jim Ritter, February 18, 2007 (Chicago Sun-Times)- Dr. John Kessler was working in his office when he received word his daughter, Allison, had been seriously hurt in a skiing accident.
Kessler is a neurologist. And after talking to Allison's doctor on the phone, he immediately realized she would be paralyzed from the waist down...
By Vickie Welborn, February 12, 2007 (The Shreveport Times)- STANLEY -- Kayla Spano's bedroom mirrors that of most other teenage girls.
Keepsakes such as homecoming corsages and cheerleading memorabilia crowd the built-in shelves, and tons of photographs fill frames or are plastered on an adjoining wall. Even more photographs of friends at school and church scroll across the screen of her laptop computer.
Next to the laptop is a combination printer/scanner that Kayla said is one of her prized Christmas presents, allowing her to print the multitude of photographs she takes on her digital camera...
February 12, 2007 (News-Medical.net)- A new company, Neurotex Ltd, has been established to develop novel silk-based products that have the potential to provide a new generation of nerve repair materials and treatments.
To help Neurotex Ltd. carry out its developments, a £250,000 investment has been made by The Kinetique Biomedical Seed Fund.
Neurotex Ltd is a joint venture company, bringing together the expertise of Professor John Priestley, Head of Neuroscience at Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, and the unique silk-based materials technology of Oxford Biomaterials Ltd...
February 13, 2007 (PRNewswire)- Human neural stem cells (hNSCs) transplanted into rats with spinal cord damage turned into neurons and made extensive synaptic contact with damaged host motor neurons, a paper published today in PLoS MEDICINE ( medicine.plosjournals.org) reported. The study, utilizing cells developed by Neuralstem, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: NRLS), and conducted at The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, led researchers to conclude that the restoration of spinal cord circuitry may be more realistic than previously thought...
February 14, 2007 (ScienceDaily)- U.S. scientists say they have disproved the long-held theory that the spinal cord is incapable of repairing itself.
The Johns Hopkins University researchers say human nerve stem cells they transplanted into damaged spinal cords of rats have survived, grown and in some cases connected with the rats' own spinal cord cells...