Trial aiming to repair spinal cord damage opens to applicants

ABC NEWS (Australia)

World-first human trials have begun in Queensland for a radical new treatment offering hope to spinal injury patients. Researchers will take cells from the noses of paralysed patients and transplant them into their spinal cords. The olfactory cells have therapeutic properties which can repair and regenerate nerves.

Transcript

00:00Getting on a bike without help, an everyday task, motocross rider Taylor Peat has been

00:09working towards since her spinal injury.

00:11There's so much that we lose with this injury and it's a lot that we lose as independence.

00:20She hopes to be selected for a new trial, using cells from the nose to regenerate spinal

00:25cord damage.

00:26It's so hard for all of us, it's so unfair that we, there's no cure for it.

00:32For Perry Cross, the trial's been a long time coming.

00:35So for someone in my situation that's now been injured for over 30 years, that's huge.

00:41For people that have been injured only a year or two, it's massive, it's massive because

00:47they have, these people who have the potential for recovery.

00:53And that's never been possible before.

00:58The trial's open to 30 participants with spinal cord injuries and will mostly be about safety.

01:04All going well, experts say it could be up to four years before larger trials begin and

01:10up to a decade before becoming a routine therapy.

01:13Run at Gold Coast University Hospital, it's open to those who live in Australia.

01:18Every injury is different and so we want to have a diverse range of people applying so

01:23that we can find out those that respond versus those that don't respond.

01:28While Taylor Peat plans to apply, she's still focusing on recovery.

01:32It's just trying everything because what works for one person won't work for the other person.

01:39moms, unfortunately, they're there.

01:41It's not a sign that they can do.

01:44They're not what works for them here.

01:46But in conversation, she Vegetingont Terry is a peut-in.

01:50.

01:53They need to be able to take two people away from the audience.

01:56We are oversimplely docking those people.

01:58We made an achievement for them that they have to be tried in two individuals who are beholding.

02:01The soldiers, you know, they're the soldiers, they're the soldiers, they're the soldiers.

02:03They're the soldiers.

02:04They're the soldiers.

02:05They're the soldiers, that they're the soldiers in the city.

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