By Steve Johnson, Feb. 24, 2008 (Mercury News)- Fast facts about GeronAfter 13 years of research costing more than $150 million, Geron says it is finally ready to conduct an unprecedented test in people with a treatment made from one of the most controversial substances in science.
Using human embryonic stem cells, the Menlo Park company has developed a therapy that enables paralyzed rats to walk and that it claims shows no dangerous side effects in experiments with about 2,000 animals...
Feb. 19, 2008 (PhysOrg.com)- A longstanding puzzle in neurodevelopment may have yielded up a key secret. A team led by scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College says they have determined how events at the very tips of the developing neuron's long, skinny axon affect gene transcription back in the cell's distant nucleus.
The study also revealed the first-ever evidence of a transcription factor -- proteins that influence gene activity -- working outside the cell's nucleus...
Feb. 7, 2008 (DailyMail)- A breakthrough in spinal surgery yesterday offered hope to victims of paralysis. The technique, which has been tested on rats, involves bypassing damaged tissue in the spine.
This allows signals to travel across injured areas, New Scientist reports.
Dr John Martin and his colleagues at Columbia University in New York have so far tested the procedure only on rodents. They selected a motor nerve branching from the healthy cord above the injury and cut it away from the abdominal muscle to which it is normally attached...