Japan

A JAPANESE university says it has successfully transplanted stem cells into a patient with a spinal cord injury, in the first clinical trial of its kind. There is currently no effective treatment for paralysis caused by serious spinal cord injuries, believed to affect more than

100 000 people in Japan alone. Surgeons at Tokyo’s Keio University want to study whether induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells can be used to treat the injuries.

IPS cells are created by stimulating mature, already specialised, cells back into a juvenile state. They can then be prompted to mature into different kinds of cells. |