Back to Life: Project To Use Stem Cells and Other Techniques to Reverse Brain Death in Patients

A biotech company in the United States was granted ethical permission to sign up 20 brain dead patients to test whether parts of their central nervous system can be brought back to life. It seems like the company has taken a page off of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein when they planned to regenerate the brains of people who are considered brain dead using a combination of stem cells and laser simulation.

The team who will do the tests hopes to see results within the first two to three months. According to Medical Daily, the outlook for those patients who are considered brain dead isn't too good at the moment. Although being brain dead and being in a vegetative state are often used one and the same, they are actually two different conditions.

The main difference is that those patients who are in a vegetative coma have a bigger chance of making a full recovery. We've seen it countless times: "Man awakes from seven-year coma feeling great" the Atlantic reported. Unfortunately, people who are brain dead don't wake up anymore. The phrase used stands for a complete and irreversible end to all brain functions and this is as serious as it sounds. Although there are patients who still have complete bodily functions like blood circulation, and food digestion even if they are already brain dead, there are those who will say that being brain dead is actually already being dead.

However, the team at Bioquark Inc. involved in the ReAnima Project thinks there may be a way to rewrite medical books and actually reverse what was thought to be irreversible. "This represents the first trial of its kind and another step towards the eventual reversal of death in our lifetime," Dr Ira Pastor, the CEO of Bioquark Inc, said. Pastor also said that they are coordinating with the hospital to identify those families which may have cause a medical or religious barrier to organ donation.

The Express Tribune mentioned that the trial will commence at the Anupam Hospital in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand India and will have participants who have been certified to be dead and will be kept alive through life support. They will be monitored using brain imaging equipment to check for signs of regeneration, specifically in the upper spinal cord, which is the lowest region of the brain stem that controls breathing and hearbeat. The trial will include a combination of therapies, such as injecting the brain with stem cells and a cocktail of peptides, as well as deploying lasers and nerve stimulation techniques that help bring patients out of comas.