A biotech company based in Philadelphia has gotten approval to try reawakening nervous systems in patients who’ve been declared clinically dead, a move one doctor called “another step towards the eventual reversal of death in our lifetime.” The trial, which will take place in India, will involve 20 patients who are brain dead and have been kept on life support, according to The Telegraph.
A scientific team lead by prinicipal investigator Dr. Himanshu Bansal of Revita Life Sciences will try a combination of new therapies, including stem cell injections into the brain, lasers and nerve stimulation techniques that have worked to awaken comatose patients. The test subjects will be monitored for a few months as researchers look for signs of regeneration in the central nervous system, and particularly the upper spinal cord, which controls breathing and heartbeat.
“This represents the first trial of its kind and another step towards the eventual reversal of death in our lifetime,” Dr. Ira Pastor of Bioquark — the Pennsylvania-based collaborator — said, according to the London paper.
Some fish and amphibians can regenerate their brains after major injuries — and the hope is that the trial treatments will spark that sort of regeneration process in humans, according to Discovery. Right now, the company is working to identify 20 patients who qualify and don’t have religious objections or medical barriers.
“To undertake such a complex initiative, we are combining biologic regenerative medicine tools with other existing medical devices typically used for stimulation of the central nervous system, in patients with other severe disorders of consciousness,” Pastor said.
“We hope to see results within the first two to three months.” In the first stage of the experiment, patients will receive weekly peptide injections directly into their spinal cords, along with biweekly stem cell treatments.
Not all scientists are as optimistic about the project as the researchers behind it. Dr. Dean Burnett of Cardiff University told The Telegraph that the thought of reversing brain death was “far-fetched” at this point.
“Saving individual parts might be helpful but it’s a long way from resurrecting a whole working brain, in a functional, undamaged state,” he said.