TAU’s world-first paralysis research

AWARD-WINNING Tel Aviv University researcher Professor Tal Dvir will address Australian audiences via Zoom on Monday, March 28 about a world-first breakthrough which uses patient tissue samples and technology to transform injured spinal cords.

“Millions of people around the world are paralysed due to spinal injury, and there is still no effective treatment. Individuals injured at a very young age are destined to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives,” he said.

“Our goal is to produce personalised spinal cord implants for every paralysed person, enabling regeneration of the damaged tissue with no risk of rejection.”

The process mimics the development of the spinal cord in human embryos and Dvir says animal trials have shown an approximate 80 per cent success rate in restoring walking abilities in chronic paralysis models.

“This is the first instance in the world in which implanted engineered human spinal cord tissues have generated recovery in an animal model for long-term chronic paralysis – the most relevant model for paralysis treatments in humans,” he said.

The next stage is clinical trials.

“Our multi-disciplinary team has engineered 3D human spinal cord tissue and implanted them in lab models with long-term chronic paralysis,” Dvir said.

“We hope that within around two to three years, the personalised engineered tissue will be implanted in paralysed individuals enabling them to stand up and walk again.”

The results of the study have been published in the prestigious scientific journal Advanced Science.

Dvir’s team are also designing and developing technologies for engineering complex tissues such as the heart, brain, intestine, kidney and eyes.

“We were the first in the world to print an entire small-scale human heart with blood vessels and I foresee that within 10 years we will be able to replace diseased organs with engineered tissue,” he said.

Register for the talk: aftau.asn.au/events/events- 2022/engineering-personalised-tissue-implants