Pig foetus may help quadriplegic walk
Foetal pig cells have been injected into the spine of a 50-year-old quadriplegic man in an experimental procedure that hospital officials say was the first of its kind.
If it works, the cells will grow as they would in a developing pig and create a new connection in Charles Dederick’s spine, damaged in a 1997 motorcycle accident.
If electric impulses can again flow from his brain, they could send signals to the muscles and possibly allow him to walk again.
‘‘I was willing to try anything,’’ said Dederick.
Dederick, of Schenectady, New York, state said he feels no difference yet from the surgery performed on April 13 at Albany Medical Centre Hospital.
Her was scheduled to speak at a news conference tonight.
It was the first of a dozen similar human experiments approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Washington University in St. Louis will also perform the procedure.
Scientists have previously used pig cells in humans to search for treatments of Parkinson’s disease. Hospital officials said this was the first time pig cells were used in a spinal treatment.
