Pig Cells Vs. Paralysis
Fetal pig cells were injected into the spine of a 50-year-old quadriplegic man in an experimental procedure that hospital officials say was the first of its kind.
If it works, the cells will grow as they would in a developing pig and create a new connection in Charles Dederick's spine, damaged in a 1997 motorcycle accident. If electric impulses can again flow from his brain, they could send signals to the muscles and possibly allow him to walk again.
"If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but it's something," Dederick, 50, said at a hospital news conference on Tuesday. "I'm not getting any younger."
Eleven days after the procedure, Dederick said he still felt nothing in his arms and legs.
Yale scientists announced last year that they found some nerve impulses were restored in paralyzed mice that had pig cells spliced into their spines. This phase of the human trials is intended to monitor for side effects.
Neurosurgeon Dr. Darryl DiRisio and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Allen Carl worked together during the three-and-a-half-hour procedure, using a fine needle and syringe to deposit 14 million cells into the spinal cord through seven injections.
Pig cells were used because human cells are not as readily available and because of ethical concerns about removing cells from aborted human fetuses, according to Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company Diacrin, which is funding the experiments.
The pig fetal neural cells grow rapidly and are functionally indistinguishable from human fetal neural cells, said Jonathan Dinsmore, a Diacrin senior director.
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