By David Agnew, science correspondent 
There are few injuries as debilitating or life-changing as spinal injuries. They threaten to rob their victims of their independence and often present overwhelming personal challenges. Aside from the human cost, the monetary cost of long-term treatment has been estimated at .7 Billion pounds every year. But despite this, progress on novel treatments has been very slow, especially when compared to recent leaps in gene therapy.
There are three significant lines of research currently being pursued; the first is the surgical reconnection of neurons at the injury site. This involves physically bringing the neurons together and providing an impetus for those cells to start communicating again. The second line is the application of occupational prostheses, devices worn on the body to translate signals from the brain to limbs and other body parts affected by the injury. The third line works at the bio-chemical level and involves inducing the body to heal itself, often through a combination of radiological treatments and growth factors.
The success of experimental surgical approaches to reconnect damaged neurons have remained constant for the last five years, meaning that no significant advances in either safety or effectiveness have been made despite years of funding and research. While this currently remains the preferred line of research for the UK government, being heavily promoted by the GMC, it looks as though widespread clinical adoption is still some time away.
Even promising technologies designed to bridge the gap between mind and machine developed by cash-rich companies such as Stark Industries have not yet made it to the commercial or medical sector. The problem with these technologies has always been the high quantities of rare earth minerals, or REMs, needed to sustain both the power sources required by the technology and the highly personalised nature of each prosthesis. Widespread distribution and adoption for the technology is not viable given the current stranglehold on REM production that currently enjoyed by China and the economics of treating each potential patient individually.
And the radiological treatments involved in coaxing the human body to reorganise itself are documented to have caused some significant mutations to arise. The treatment has been implicated in the Enhanced Capability siege of Regents Park last November, in which the supernaturally strong 27 year-old Michael Blandford took a young family hostage. It was later revealed that he had been undergoing treatment for a neurological condition and had been exposed to large doses of radiation and growth serum. The inquest into Blandford’s death heard how the mutation continued even post mortem. The immediate outcry over the safety of such treatment regimes has led to their immediate suspension.
But there is new hope in research published this week that could lead to treatments for spinal or other neural injury that could be no more invasive than a weekly injection, cost no more than sustained care for chronic arthritic conditions, and pose no more mutational risk than regular cortisone injections. Professor Jones of Sussex University’s Scientific Medicine Unit explains, “the problem with neural injuries are two-fold. Firstly, the slow rate of neural regrowth found in such injuries, and secondly, the growth of protective scar tissue at the site in preference to functional neural cells”. In short, this means that when injuries do occur, not enough neural matter regrows quickly enough to overcome the scarring that disrupts the electrical signals to and from the brain.
Professor Jones, a wheelchair user since a 1987 road traffic collision, and his team have been working with the science community’s current material of choice, carbon nanotubes, to create what he calls a “Gelatinous Locally Organised Occupational Prosthesis, or Gloop for short”. This remarkable substance looks somewhat innocuous in the test tube, just an oily black liquid, but to Professor Jones that oily black liquid represents both a huge and immediate technological advance and a sign of things to come.
As Professor Jones explains, “our carbon nanotubes are built from Carbon-23, which is unique to our process at present. It’s particular properties allow us to chain nanotubes together to form RNA-like structures, very much like those found in nature. This allows for the local encoding of folding instructions, which in turn allow complex structures to be formed at the molecular level. By applying information to the system sets of commands can be switched on or off, which allows the liquid to respond to inputs and undergo morphological change”.
These self-organised structures at the local level even give the substance the ability to form small electric circuits. While not as powerful as the dedicated processors that we’re used to, even in our ubiquitous smart phones, the compound augments existing circuits by providing additional routing, effectively creating new neurons that can supplement existing processing power. As Professor Jones explains, “we’re looking to expand this into personal computing as the potential is very exciting; you’ll be able to increase your phone’s power not by swapping out a very expensive chip but by dipping it in this Gloop.” But he is the first to admit that this particular commercial aspect is some years off, “unfortunately, at present, the traditional CPUs used in today’s computers do not have the ability to adapt to the Gloop, meaning that the Gloop itself needs be smarter”. It’s interesting that Professor Jones uses the word “smarter” in relation to Gloop as it is in the field of medical science and in neural bridging and repair that Gloop really comes into its own. “The human body is filled with neurons whose natural state is to seek out neighbouring neurons, form connections, and process information”. Gloop self-organises and seems to be indistinguishable from other neurons. In tests with rats bearing induces spinal lesions the injection of Gloop to the damaged site has seen an 45% improvement in lower extremity movement and 83% improvement in sensory input back to the brain from nerve endings while the Gloop is in place.
While these numbers are promising Professor Jones is open about the challenges. Immuno-rejection is the first, with increased white cell count at the injection site a particular concern. Early tests with immunosuppressant regimes show an improvement in the rejection rate but not in the dissipation of the Gloop itself.
Gloop is pushing other boundaries too, “The Advanced Energy Mechanics Lab here at Sussex has been working on Silicone Nanotubes for the last year and they are showing enormous promise in the field of energy storage and release. By incorporating these silicone nanotubes into Gloop, the resulting substance is not only able to self-organise based on information but also self-power based on energy inputs from a range of sources, including kinetic energy, solar, or even accumulated heat”.
For all these possible advances, funding is a problem. While the state of the economy is well known and government funding across all departments is down, scientific research has actually seen an increase in funding. The problem for Professor Jones is that the funding has gone elsewhere. “Gloop is just not high-profile enough. We're a small team here in Sussex and while we have some residual funding to ensure we can maintain our limited production rate we are lacking real funds for the real additional research that we need.” And what of the private sector? “For obvious reasons, they are unwilling to invest in our project. We own the patent for this particular substance and the processes surrounding it and it ultimately presents real competition for the traditional techniques that they have been funding for years”.
And so what next for Professor Jones and his team? “We’re going to have to think of something special. Something to publicise this vital research and raise public awareness. If the public could see what we're doing the government will be forced to provide funding and, within a decade, the debilitating effects of spinal injuries will be confined to history.”