Pig Cells Injected in Quadriplegic’s Spine
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Fetal pig cells were injected into the spine of a 50-year-old quadriplegic man in Albany 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.
“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but it’s something,” Dederick, 50, said at a hospital news conference. “I’m not getting any younger.”
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