Slashdot Mirror
Nanotech and the Blind
tomsastroblog writes "In a BBC report scientists injected blind hamsters with a solution containing nanoparticles. The result? Nerves re-grew and sight returned. The researchers injected the blind hamsters with a solution of synthetically made peptides; within 24 hours the brain started to heal itself. The peptides were later broken down by the body into a harmless substance and was excreted three to four weeks later. From the article: 'We are looking at this as a step process. If this can be used while operating on humans to mitigate damage during neurosurgery, that would be the first step,'"
After injecting the hamsters with a solution containing nanoparticles, the nerves re-grew and sight returned
This is pretty advanced. So why did Jordy have to wear that stupid visor?In order to try to restore quality of life to those individuals you can try to reconnect some disconnected parts to try to give some functionality
I guess John Bobbit could've used this as wellOn a serious note though, this seems really amazing. It's basically neuro-knitting a damaged brain back in place.
I wonder if this can somehow treat brain defects due to developmental problems. Disorders such as Schitzophrenia can be treated with a frontol lobotomy (although this is only done in extreme circumstances) where they disconnect nerves the front part of the brain. I wonder if they can use this technology to reconnect it in a way that will act as a treatment (sort of "rewiring").
They will no doubt look to see if it can heal the lesions from myelin deteriation caused by diseases like Multiple Sclerosis. I think the fact that brain tissue regenerated in adult hamsters that weren't supposed to grow new brain tissue gives some promise to that. I know that Parkinson's disease also affects the nervous system, but I believe its caused by some kind of cellular failure. Nevertheless, this looks like some very promising research!
--
"Man Bits Dog
Then Bites Self"
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
What a great technology this looks to be. However, I would hesitate to call it 'nanotechnology', since it does not appear in any way to be 'molecular manufacturing'. Indeed, while the article didn't specify the means of production, making peptides sounds like chemistry to me.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
Everytime I read one of these articles with a breakthrough in treating a deadly disease or severe disability, I have to say to myself that it's surely a wonderful time to be a mouse!
I hope these cures can be adapted for humans too.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Glad to see the blind getting some vaperhope, but might this process have potential to repair spinal damage?
I am sure that it will take a few generations for this to make it to human medical proceedures, as long as funding is not pulled away. If Christopher Reeve was frozen he might have had a chance in 100 years, if they can bring a frozen person back then.
Much of the permanence of nerve damage is due to scarring, which creates a barrier that nerves can't heal across. If you cut the nerve and put this gel into the wound within 45 minutes, it apparently helps the healing process. The reason? Minimizing scarring: Of course, this doesn't mean it's a useless discovery. If you have to perform surgery, say tumor removal, injecting this gel may promote growth in any nerves you may have just cut.
"The first thing we saw was that the brain had started to heal itself in the first 24 hours. We had never seen that before - so that was very surprising."
Hopefully this means this it could be used in the peripheral nervous system as well, to heal severed sensory neurons, or perhaps even spinal cord injuries. Too bad Christopher Reeve won't be around to see that.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
There's a lot of work, testing, and development that has to go into this before it can be used on humans. We don't know yet if the "repairs" are permanent or if the hamster's sight will deterioriate within weeks/months. We also don't know the side effects this would have on a human. Bottom line: this is a first step. An impressive one, no doubt, but it's important to remember that this isn't a tried and true cure, found and ready for manufacturing and distribution. In that sense, this really is only a first half-step; they're not even ready to begin using it for neurosurgery yet.
Would this also work on the three blind mice?
From my point of view and IAAMB (I am a molecular biologist) this is only encouraging. it has been shown several times and through several ways you can get nerves to regrow in a living animal. We have seen stems cells, hormones smooth surfaces, and now injectable protein gel however all these tricks fail on a few levels. But there are some issues I have:
1.) Such procedures are useless for fixing old damage, scar tissue build up physically prevents nerves from "having a place to grow into". Additionally, large gaps are still impossible, so for big lesions or paternally using a surgical procedure to prep a site to regenerate will not fly. You cant just cut out the chunk of "damaged goods" and let it regrow fresh. So unless you use this trick as the article suggests at the time of injury ( surgery time perhaps), before scar forms you have ) chance of help.
2.) The other problem is one of myelination, the insulation around the axon on each motor nerve. Adult tissue lacks the ability to produce significant amounts of myelin to sheath nerves. Fetal stem cells cant, but not adult tissue. So it is likely that any nerves grown this way will be de-myelinated and not at all good for good signal transmission. Incidentally, one common type of de-myelinated nerve is the sensory nerve. just imagine, fix a arm amputation this way and i bet you will get VERY weal motor control, and potentially full or malformed sensory information due to the very good regrowth of random sensory nerves (think life long chronic pain). This side effect has been seen in a number of spinal injury patients given experimental stem cell treatment in china (right location I think).
3.) Of course proteins are small, nano even, but how is this "Nanotech". This would be more like "Biotech", ahh well the rain of buzz words to sell ideas shall continue unabated.
Absolutely amazing story. On a related note I know a guy who has been stuck in a wheelchair for 10+ years. He was a helicoptor pilot for the national guard long ago and had an accident where he landed really hard. The skids of the helicoptor were damaged but he walked away with a really bruised backside. 10 years after the accident he woke up one morning unable to move his legs. Apparently the accident had caused some sort of damage to his lower spine that wasn't diagnosed until his legs stopped working. Well after 10+ years in the wheelchair he was picked for a double-blind medical study with some European medical firm. After doing nothing more than taking a pill for a few weeks he was able to walk again with the help of a walker. The fact that we can develop a pill that can target conditions like blindness or this spinal injury is truely amazing.
BBC Scientists made blind mice into the Borg who armed themselves with linux powered laser-headed sharks and took over the BBC and released this pleasant sounding statement.
We're doomed! Borg mice, who'd'a'thought it!
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
This is not nanotechnology.
The scientists injected peptides. Short strings of amino acids. The same stuff that comprises every protein in our bodies. So how is that nanotech? Simply because molecules are on the nanometer scale? Then I guess that makes all electronics pico- or femtotechnology.
Don't listen to the bullshit article's vocabulary--there's a more appropriate word for what they're doing, and it's called MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
It certainly may be possible to do those sort of things. The tricky part is that a good number of the cells may simply die off if the injury isn't quickly repaired. Another effect of the gel is to provide a nutrient-rich solution to help growth, so time is of the essence.
The good news is that there's lots of research going into nerve regeneration and repair. Things like nerve growth factors, removing mylein-induced inhibition, and stem cells are all promising fields.
It'll be interesting when people's brains can be kept alive for long periods of time by replacing or modifying large chucks of it. When do I stop being really me?
One can only hope that the amount of effort it takes to make these (even if for benevolent reasons) is expensive/difficult enough to keep all but the most altruistic applications out of the mix.
Hrm... Wouldn't it be easier to cultivate Anthrax or make Nerve Gas for military applications?
Well truth be told aerosol attacks are highly ineffective for military applications.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
when reading the title "Nanotech and the Blind" was that we'll just make everything excruciatingly small so no one can see it, thereby making everyone "blind" and balancing the scales.
Kind of like how "No Child Left Behind" can be true, so long as everyone is held back equally.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
I went ahead an tried your experimient.
First, I kicked my brother in the crotch. He doubled over, held his crotch and moaned. This was really just for form's sake cause I kick him there all the time and I already know what he does.
Then, I went to Disneyland... almost screwed up the experiment cause my travel agent booked Disney World instead but I caught the error in time. Anyway, I wandered around looking at Mickey until he was the same size as my brother. Funny that he can change his size, but I tell youe, he can. Anyway, I then proceded to kick him in the crotch. He yelped "Hey!", lifted off the ground about an inch, then reached back his big fist and clobbered me. His fist was really fatty or something, cause it didn't really hurt, but it was so large it knocked me off balance, and he got a good kick in before some kind of security guard ran up, shouting "Angela! Are you OK?". "Yeah," Mickey replied in a disconcerting falsetto. Into his walkie talkie thingy he said "She's all right, I am taking him in". I was then detained and dragged away.
All in all, I have to conclude your hypothesis that the responses would be the same is a crock of shit.
I'm really excited about this type of work. Those who used to be sighted that have lost their sight (or had their sight impaired) may be able to regain the senses they once had. The medical implications of these technologies are exciting.
I would like to play the thinker's advocate, though. It is important to understand the other side of this... blind culture, much like deaf culture, is a distinct means of life - one that doesn't think that blind (or deaf) people are "broken" in some way. Yes, folks with all five of their senses tend to look at those with less-than-five as though something is "wrong" with them. But, from the perspective of a great many blind and deaf people, they're not "broken" or "impaired" at all. Indeed, in some places, the deaf and the blind communities celebrate their different-ness and have wonderful, productive lives. You can see a few starting points here at this simple Wikipedia article: Wikipedia article on deaf culture.
With all that said... if indeed this technology leads to folks (that want to see (or see again)) having new or regained sight, then I'm really interested in this. I'd like to see this technology extended to nerve damage, spinal repairs (particularly spinal injury repair).
A Passionate Independent Musician
I submitted this story with a better description and a better link from MIT.
Actually what happened is this: the tracks in the visual cortex were severed and then a biodegradable peptide solution was injected into the damaged area in the brain, which created a 3d matrix of that allowed new cells to the edges in the matrix thus reconstructing the actual cell connections rather than producing scarring tissue.
This process can be applied to damaged areas of the brain or nerves in the spinal cord.
I think this brings the humans one step closer to immortality - imagine using stem cellls and these peptides to reconstruct damage of the brain and the nerve system that is caused by aging and/or trauma.
You can't handle the truth.
Great. Now show me a condition of concentration such that only one molecule is being made, not at a time but being made period, and you are able to find it and do something with it, and I'll concede the point.
Again, this is easy to do. One can easily find a dilution such that there is no more than one molecule of substrate per tube, while immunological and fluorescence methods are capable of binding and tracking individual molecules, if for some reason it was necessary to do so. But you are begging the question: What is it that causes it to be nanotechnology to make a nanometer scale molecule one at a time, but not nanotechnology to make the exact same nano-scale molecule efficiently in quantity? Note that most proposed applications of nanotechnology do not involve the use of single molecules, but rather the use of a population of nanoscale molecules or molecular assemblies. So your argument is a bit like insisting that it is automotive mechanics to build one car by hand, but not if you build the same car in a factory on an assembly line.