Hope for millions as paralyzed mice walk again after just TWO WEEKS of breakthrough gene therapy - Daily Mail

Researchers from Ruhr University Bochum in Germany stimulated the mice's damaged spinal cord nerves to regenerate using a designer protein.

The team induced nerve cells of the motor-sensory cortex to produce hyper-interleukin-6.

Researchers stimulated the paralyzed mice's damaged spinal cord nerves to regenerate using a designer protein.

The protein, or hyper-interleukin-6 (hIL-6) operates by taking on a key feature of spinal cord injuries that produce disability, which is damage to nerve fibers known as axons.

The protein is a cytokine, which is important in cell signaling, but being a 'designer' means it is not found in nature and can only be produced using genetic engineering.

 The team induced nerve cells of the motor-sensory cortex to produce hyper-interleukin-6.

To do so, they injected genetically engineered viruses to 'deliver the blueprint for the production of the protein to specific nerve cells.

'The special thing about our study is that the protein is not only used to stimulate those nerve cells that produce it themselves, but that it is also carried further (through the brain),' the team's head Dietmar Fischer told Reuters in an interview.

Researches previously used a similar gene therapy to regenerate nerve cells in the visual system, but the recent study focused on those in the motor-sensory cortex to produce the designer protein?

Fischer and his team used viruses in the therapy that stimulated the nerve cells in the motor-sensory cortex to make hIL-6 on their own.

The viruses were also customized for gene therapy and included blueprints to make the protein to guide the nerve cells, which is known as motoneurons. .