Promising Stem Cell Therapy Could Help Spinal Cord Injury Sufferers Regain Ability to Walk

At the Max Rady College of Medicine, University of Manitoba, in Canada, researchers have developed a stem-cell-based therapy that is regenerating spinal cords in laboratory animals and may become available for human clinical trials. In a news release earlier this month, the University described the work of Dr. Soheila Karimi, Professor of Physiology and Pathophysiology, who along with colleagues in her laboratory, is developing neural stem cell transplantation techniques to repair spinal cord injuries.

In the past transplanted stem cells have exhibited very low survival rates. But Dr. Karimi explains what’s novel about the work being done at the University.

“We have discovered that presence of a class of inhibitory molecules in the injured spinal cord potently limits success of stem cell transplantation. When we blocked these molecules therapeutically at the time of transplantation, the treatment led to an increase in stem cell survival and generated suitable neural cells in the injured spine…This strategy enabled rats to walk with more weight support and coordination.”

I have a friend who suffered a traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) in his teenage years and has been confined to a wheelchair ever since. The health and work challenges he has faced would make the average person curl up in a ball and check out of life. But Dan has forged ahead and created a business to help others with disabilities. He has even coached wheelchair basketball teams in the past.

In Dr. Karimi’s laboratory, the work has been led by a doctoral student, Dr. Seyed Mojtaba Hosseini, who is the lead author of a paper describing the research and results, recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

The paper states that SCI “is a leading cause of permanent neurologic disabilities in young adults. Functional impairments after SCI are substantially attributed to progressive neurodegeneration.” 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 250,000 and a half million annually suffer SCIs. The majority are caused by traffic accidents, falls or violent confrontations. The WHO notes that those who suffer from SCIs “are two to five times more likely to die prematurely than people without a spinal cord injury.” In addition, SCI victims have “lower rates of school enrollment and economic participation,” and low employment and earnings while enduring significantly higher costs of living.

At the University of Manitoba the researchers identified two receptor proteins (molecules) that inhibited the regeneration of motor and spinal interneurons. By suppressing these proteins in the laboratory in female rats, transplanted neural precursor cells (NPCs) were able to thrive and replace damaged neurons. If these results can be repeated in human patients, the treatment strategy could prove promising for neuronal replacement in SCIs.

What is the Cost of SCIs?

In Canada, in 2019, the annual cost was estimated to be $2.7 billion to cover medical management, hospitalization, and indirect costs. Long-term issues like low employment and subsidies were not factored in the data.

From U.S. data for the same year come the following numbers:

• Approximately 291,000 Americans were living with spinal cord injuries.
• 39.5% of SCIs were paraplegic (loss of the use of leg motor skills) and 59.9% were quadriplegic (loss of motor skills in all four limbs).
• Average first-year expenses for paraplegics was $550,000.
• Average first-year expenses for quadriplegics depending on where the damage occurred in the cervical spine varied from $816,000 to $1.129 million.
• Average lifetime costs for paraplegics with 25, the age of injury was $2.5 million.
• Average lifetime costs for quadriplegics with 25, the age of injury varied from $3.6 to $5 million.
• The percentage of those with SCIs who were unemployed ten years after the injury was 77%.

There is no doubt, that finding a therapy to get those with SCIs back on their feet literally would dramatically reduce lifetime costs for care, as well as give those with SCIs better prospects at long-term employment.

Dr. Karimi in the University of Manitoba press release talks about overcoming the consequences of SCIs. She states,

“Individuals with spinal cord injury live with the debilitating consequences of the disease for decades, and development of new regenerative medicine treatments is an unmet need to improve the quality of life for a large population of people.” 

Further study of this approach to treatment is warranted and Dr. Karimi hopes to proceed to human clinical trials in the future.