Right Turn: Biomaterials for the 21st Century – Repairing spinal cords

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Dr. Robert Langer’s enthusiasm for the limitless promise of bioengineering is infectious. With his efforts and under his tutelage, one hopes that huge advances will be made in restoring movement to the paralyzed and curing the sick through, for example, more effective drug delivery systems that can manipulate how long and where in the body they work.

Continuing on with his theme of Biomaterials for the 21^St Century, Dr. Langer shares how a graduate student in his lab collaborated with others to create a scaffold containing neural stem cells to repair injured spinal cords. This short video shows the impressive progress in a rat. Human trials are to begin in April.

Our regular feature, Right Turn, showcases the “lighter” side of stem cells and regenerative medicine. Every Friday, we will bring you cartoons, photos, videos and other content that may be just as thought provoking as the written submissions that you are used to finding here, but they definitely won’t be blogs.

As always, we welcome your feedback and we also welcome suitable submissions. Be creative! Use the right (!) side of your brain. Make us laugh! Let’s see if we can make this new direction a positive one for all of us. Send your submission to info(at)ccrm.ca.

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Stacey Johnson

Stacey Johnson is the editor of Signals and a contributor. For 25 years, Stacey has been providing strategic communications counsel to government, corporate, technology and health organizations. She began her career at the CTV Television Network and then moved to Hill & Knowlton Canada where she advised clients in a variety of industries and sectors. Stacey is the Vice President, Communications and Marketing for CCRM, a leader in developing and commercializing regenerative medicine-based technologies and cell and gene therapies. She has a Master's degree in Public Relations. You can follow her on Twitter @msstaceyerin.

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