The Queensland Government has invested $5 million in a Griffith University pre-clinical trial to prove that a “nerve bridge” across a damaged spinal cord may be the answer to otherwise permanent paralysis.
In a science and health collaboration, the project, led by Dr James St John, will be conducted across two of the university’s leading research institutes, the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery (GRIDD) and the Menzies Health Institute Queensland.
The pre-clinical trial will expand on the work led by current Australian of the Year and GRIDD biomedical scientist Professor Emeritus Alan Mackay-Sim who showed that transplanting olfactory cells from the nose into the spinal cord was safe in humans.
The newly funded work will now use modern scientific approaches to produce a three-dimensional nerve bridge that can be transplanted into the spinal cord to promote regeneration across the injury site.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said Griffith’s research team had the unique know-how and clinical
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