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Stem Cells Cure Paralyzed Rats

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the grow-your-own-spine dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article on Forbes as well as other sources, 'Scientists have used [embryonic] stem cells and a soup of nerve-friendly chemicals to not just bridge a damaged spinal cord but actually regrow the circuitry needed to move a muscle, helping partially paralyzed rats walk.'"

1 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. Re:If only... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work at a genetics research laboratory, and I'm not allowed to keep mice, rats, guinepigs, or hampsters as a pet at home

    If the lab you work in is part of Jackson Labs, that's a reasonably paranoid restriction. If a university lab has an infection problem, they're often small enough to treat the issue medically. If not, they can buy a fresh population from, say, Jackson Labs. Jackson needs to have the equivalent of "five-nines" reliability in their animals, where a univeristy vivarium is usually happy with two or thee nines.