Let the Worms Eat Into Your Brain
BBC News - Silk ‘could help repair nerves’
Silk may be able to help repair damaged nerves, according to scientists.
The UK researchers have shown how nerve cells can grow along bundles of a special fibre, which has properties similar to spider silk.
They hope the silk will encourage cell re-growth across severed nerves, possibly even in damaged spinal cords.
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The silk, dubbed Spidrex, comes from silk worms that have been modified to give the fibres special properties that help cells to bind.
Professor John Priestley, a neuroscientist from Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, and lead researcher, said the silk acted as a scaffold on which nerve cells could grow.
The team has tested the silk in tissue culture (shown in the winning image) and in animals - and in both cases, said Professor Priestly, the results had been good.