Spinal Cord Repair with Engineered Nervous Tissue
Abstract
Spinal cord injury (SCI) exacts an enormous social and financial burden on society. As such, there has been considerable attention directed at finding treatment strategies, including development of tissue and cell transplant techniques. However, the current approaches do not adequately address the complexity of the injury site, such as lesion length and an environment that is usually non-permissive for axon regeneration. We have developed tissue engineered nerve grafts (TENGs) consisting of living dorsal root ganglia (DRG) and axons that can be stretch-grown to a length necessary to bridge extensive lesions. In current studies, we have optimized in vivo laminoplasty procedures, transplanted 5 mm-long stretch-grown constructs into a 5 mm-long lesion in the rat thoracic spinal cord, and have demonstrated survival of DRGs up to 6 weeks post-transplant. If successful, this approach will provide an alternative or additional means to repair large spinal lesions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2014
- Accession Number
- ADA624347
Entities
People
- Douglas H. Smith
Organizations
- University of Pennsylvania