According to iflscience.com, it may be possible to bring someone back from the dead in the not-so-distant future. A biotech company in the U.S has been granted ethical permission by an American and Indian review board to conduct experiments using stem cells, on patients who are presently brain dead and being kept alive exclusively by life support machines.
The trials for this groundbreaking work will begin at Anupam Hospital in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand in India. Brain dead patients will have their brains injected with stem cells, undergo nerve stimulation techniques and be given infusions of chemicals in their spinal cords to see if anything can stimulate new activity in their brains and revive them.
The project, called ReAnima, is being led by a team from Bioquark and will take place over several months, during which the patients will be highly analyzed for any new developments.
ReAnima will add to the knowledge doctors have about the state of being brain dead, and possibly provide more clues as to why most people who suffer from a condition that renders them reliant on life support don’t ever ‘wake up’ but that some, like Steven Thorpe, miraculously do.
Thorpe suffered severe injuries from a car crash as a teenager in England in 2012 and was written off as unrevivable by more than one specialist. All told his parents to think of taking their son off of support machines and consider organ donation.
An astute neurosurgeon found very faint signs of brain activity in Thorpe, which convinced his parents to postpone any drastic decisions. Two weeks later, Thorpe woke up and five after that, he left the hospital on his own steam to continue his life.
It is extremely rare that a person does resurface and return to life after being considered brain dead, but as Thorpe’s case proves, and Bioquark’s project hopes to, it does sometimes happen.
Bioquark Inc. is a life sciences company that “develops proprietary combinatorial biologics for the regeneration and repair of human organs and tissues,” and was founded in 2007 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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