Oct 21 2008
Injuries to the peripheral nerves-those linking the central nervous system to the arms and legs of the body-lead to a loss of sensation and function in 1 in 1000 people. Unlike the nerves of the central nervous system, peripheral nerves can be repaired and regenerated, but this process is often incomplete and ineffective.
To improve the odds, researchers have developed so-called nerve guidance conduits, which are essentially cylindrical tubes surgically implanted between two parts of an injured nerve, providing a guide through which new nerves can grow. But that design is too simple, argues cell biologist John Haycock, a senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield in England, who has built a better NGC. Haycock's model consists of a scaffold made of thousands of aligned polymer microfibers, each just 5 to 10 millionths of a meter in diameter and 10 to 80 millimeters long. Microchannels created by the fibers provide an intricate scaffold for introducing nerve cells. Tests in the laboratory in which nerve cells were seeded onto the new NGC microfibres show a high degree of cell viability and alignment, which is crucial for the accurate regrowth of nerve fibers.
Haycock's talk, "Use of Aligned Polymer Microfibres for Peripheral Nerve Repair," is at 4:40 pm on Tuesday, October 21, 2008, in Room 202 of the Hynes Convention Center.