This Scientific Trial Hopes To Bring The Dead Back To Life
A new medical trial is aiming to revive people who have been declared clinically dead due to brain injury.
Bioquark Inc, a bio-tech company in the U.S., has been given ‘ethical permission’ to run tests on 20 patients that involve injecting their brains with stem cells and peptides as well as using lasers and other nerve stimulation techniques in an effort to bring parts of the nervous system back to life.
People are declared dead when they suffer a permanent loss of brainstem function, but bodies can continue to be technically alive as they pump blood and digest food.
The theory behind the new trials is based on animals like salamanders that can re-grow limbs; the scientists think that brain stem cells may be able to ‘reboot’ and come back to life based on the tissue that surrounds them.
The trial will include six weeks of regular stem cell and peptide injections plus several months of monitoring, and will take place at Anupam Hospital in Rudrapur, India.
The researchers are particularly interested in the upper spinal cord, which is also the lowest part of the brain and controls independent breathing and heartbeat, and expect to see results in two-to-three months’ time.
Dr Ira Pastor, CEO of Bioquark, explained that the plan is to eventually completely combat death.
“This represents the first trial of its kind and another step towards the eventual reversal of death in our lifetime.
“It is a long term vision of ours that a full recovery in [clinically dead] patients is a possibility, although that is not the focus of this first study – but it is a bridge to that eventuality.”
In the shorter term, they hope their findings will help develop more effective treatments for coma patients, as well as degenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
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