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 ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Injuries to the brain can leave people paralyzed or brain damaged. Injuries to bones and joints can leave people with a lifetime of pain. Doctors are working on ways to fix both problems, and they're getting closer.
Neuroscientist Rutledge Ellis-Behnke, Ph.D., is trying to fix injured brains. "There really has not been anything that will allow for the reconnection of disconnected parts of the brain," he tells Ivanhoe.
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He's getting closer. By injecting tiny strings of amino acids in the brain, Dr. Ellis-Behnke, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, is actually re-growing nerve cells. The strings form a framework for nerves to grow across.
"You inject this into the area that has been injured in the brain and it forms a gel, and it actually causes the brain to heal itself," he says.
It even worked on hamsters with lost vision.
 "We saw healing of the brain, which we have never seen before," Dr. Ellis-Behnke says. "Seventy-five percent of the animals had returned to functional vision, so they had actual return of sight."
Across the country, James Cook, D.V.M., Ph.D., a veterinarian clinician scientist at University of Missouri-Columbia, is fixing another body part. His work to fix bad knees in dogs will soon help humans.
"The biggest problems right now with total joint replacements of any joint in both species are just the second you put it in, it's really degenerating. It's wearing out," Dr. Cook tells Ivanhoe.
 Instead of metal and plastic, Dr. Cook creates biological implants with living cells. "We take those cells and we actually grow them to start to make a tissue," he says. "Then we prepare them to go back in your body."
Before they're implanted, the cells are exercised in the lab. There, they actually transform from being cells that are just in a Petri dish to cartilage that would work in your knee. The implants are already helping dogs. In humans, they'll also heal bad hips and hands.
Dr. Cook says there is very little risk of rejection with donor cells because rejection is not an issue with cartilage and bone cells. He also says the implants actually get stronger over time and will develop differently in everyone.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
If you would like more information, please contact:
Katherine Kostiuk
University of Missouri-Columbia News Bureau
kostiukk@missouri.edu
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