A biotech company in the US has taken the first official steps in their attempt to bring the dead back to life. They were granted ‘ethical permission’ to recruit 20 patients who have been declared clinically dead due to a traumatic brain injury and kept alive by life support. Ther plan is to test whether certain parts of the central nervous system can be brought back to life via stem cells and peptides.
It’s 2016, you had to know this was coming soon. More details on how they plan on doing it. via the Telegraph:
Scientists will use a combination of therapies, which include injecting the brain with stem cells and a cocktail of peptides, as well as deploying lasers and nerve stimulation techniques which have been shown to bring patients out of comas.
The peptides will be administered into the spinal cord daily via a pump, with the stem cells given bi-weekly, over the course of a 6 week period.
The company will monitor the patient’s brain activity with brain imaging equipment looking for signs of regeneration specifically in the upper spinal cord which control independent breathing and the heartbeat. Dr Ira Pastor, the CEO of Bioquark Inc. knows the selection may be tough:
“We just received approval for our first 20 subjects and we hope to start recruiting patients immediately from this first site – we are working with the hospital now to identify families where there may be a religious or medical barrier to organ donation.
I think it’s a step in the right direction, mostly because I’ve failed as an American by not watching any zombie movies. Those people are probably losing their mind right now, because if I had to write a zombie movie, this is exactly how I would start it.
In all seriousness, if we looked 10 or 20 years into the future can you imagine the advances we will have in medicine and technology at the rate we are going now?