Repairing stroke damage with stem cells

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Researchers and scientists in the United Kingdom have begun testing stem cell repair techniques that might potentially repair damage to brain tissues following strokes. While studies and research is ongoing with mice and rats, human clinical trials are still several years away. However, the progress of the research, which creates a ladder or scaffolding type approach to tissue repair, shows great promise.
Eminent stem cell scientists in Edinburgh are hoping to find treatments and cures to help the nearly 14,000 citizens who suffer strokes every year in Scotland alone. In Scotland, strokes are third in the leading causes of death and severe disabilities. Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry in London as well as Nottingham University have been testing neural stem cells from rats and mice to treat stroke damage.

Says researcher Dr Mike Modo, "What we hope to do is fill in the gaps where tissue has been lost, helping to improve function in the patient. The ultimate aim is to establish if this approach can provide a more efficient and effective repair process in stroke."

By attaching stem cells to a scaffold like structure of tissues and cells, researchers have injected or inserted potentially healing stem cells into the brains of rats, but results are not expected before four or five months. The approach is just one of the many ways in which researchers and scientists are hoping to make use of stem cells for the treatment of neural muscular damage caused by stroke.

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