Spinal cord injury is the most serious complication of spinal injury. Damaged nerve fibers may no longer be able to transmit signals between the brain and muscles, and this regenerative failure often leads to severe and permanent disability, such as paraplegia or quadriplegia after spinal cord injury, or worse, the inability of these axons to regenerate. So far, the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of spinal cord injury is still a big problem in the medical field.

Now, a newly developed spinal implant may offer hope to paralyzed patients around the world, helping them one day walk again. Researchers from the Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology at Tel Aviv University have, for the first time in the world, designed 3D human spinal cord tissue and implanted it into a laboratory model of long-term chronic paralysis. The results were encouraging: the success rate was about 80 percent.

In particular, the researchers first biopsied a small piece of abdominal fat tissue from a patient. Then, after the cells from the biopsied tissue are separated from the extracellular matrix, the cells are genetically engineered to return to a state similar to embryonic stem cells - that is, capable of becoming any type of cell in the body. A personalized hydrogel was created from the extracellular matrix and implanted without causing an immune response or rejection. The stem cells were then coated in hydrogels, turning the cells into three-dimensional implants containing a neuronal network of motor neurons in a process that mimics embryonic development in the spinal cord.

Human spinal cord implants were then implanted into laboratory models for control experiments divided into those who had recently become paralyzed (the acute model) and those who had been paralyzed for a long time (the chronic model). After implantation, 100% of laboratory models with acute paralysis and 80% of laboratory models with chronic paralysis regained the ability to walk.

The researchers said: "These model animals underwent a rapid rehabilitation process and were able to walk well at the end of their rehabilitation. This is the first example in the world of implantable engineered human tissue producing rehabilitation in an animal model of long-term chronic paralysis - the most relevant model for the treatment of human paralysis."

This marks another crucial step toward conducting clinical trials to repair spinal cord injuries in humans. You know, millions of people around the world are paralyzed by spinal injuries, and there is still no effective treatment for their condition. People who are injured at a very young age are condemned to a lifetime in a wheelchair, bearing all the social, economic and health-related costs of paralysis. And 3D bioprinted tissue for the treatment of spinal cord injury, undoubtedly provides a new life possibility for people with spinal cord injury.