Among them are neural cells to treat spinal cord injury and degenerative nervous system diseases, cardiomyocytes to treat heart disease, pancreatic islet cells to treat diabetes, dendritic cells for cancer therapy, chondrocytes for arthritis, osteoblasts to rebuild bone and hepatocytes for drug discovery and liver failure.

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Takeshita Noboru is hospitalized for treatment of spondylitis deformans, a spinal deformation caused by aging which puts pressure on the nervous system and causes back pain and paralysis in the limbs.

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When it is injected into muscle, the AAV particles are sucked up by the hand-like protrusions connecting muscles with the nervous system, all the way back up into the spinal cord.

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Each rat had, in effect, grown a new nervous system which ran from the motor cortexes of its brain, down its spinal column, past the breaks in its spine and into its back legs.

ECONOMIST: An experiment on rats brings hope to the paralysed