Page 8 - Club Bulletin 23/04/2018

Associate Professor St John is building on work by 2017 Australian of the Year retired
Professor Alan Mackay-Sim who showed olfactory insheathing cells from the nose could
be safely taken from people with paraplegia, grown in the lab then transplanted back
into the human body.

These cells are used because of their unique capacity to regenerate nerve cells in the

brain.
The team is now working on ways to purify the nasal cells, improve the nerve “bridge”
they need to grow on and figure out how to transplant them into the injury site without

causing further damage

However, simply transplanting stem cells is not enough to get someone walking again.
Patients will need long term rehabilitation, the brain will have to be retrained to
remember how to walk and take in sensory queues from the paralysed site.

That’s where the work of a second group of biomechanical researchers at Griffith

University comes in.
They are working on exoskeletons they want to wire to the human brain and connect to

muscles, bypassing the damaged spinal cord.

These machines could be used to support paralysed people while they learn to move
again after the nasal cell transplant.
Griffith University Professor David Lloyd and team use computer modelling to create

individualised 3D devices and implants used by orthopaedic surgeons, and wants to use
these technologies to help paraplegics.

However, he needs approximately $330,000 in funding to make this happen, money he
says is hard to get from agencies like the National Health and Medical Research Council
who don’t tend to fund these kinds of very new and innovative projects.

The idea is to use an exoskeleton, like a bike or a robotic walking machine, which assists a
person to walk above a treadmill or over the ground.

This device would be connected to an EEG that records electrical activity in the brain and
signals sent to the muscles.

The system would also be linked to electrodes attached to the patient’s muscles and
would signal those muscles to move.

In theory, this would allow the mind to control the exoskeleton, and if used in
conjunction with cell therapy, could help stimulate the spinal cells to regenerate.

Feel Free to google any of the above to read more on this exciting research.

Thank You

Mari Jamieson