Paralyzed rats regenerate spinal cord with Nepean student’s discovery

Every year 1,400 Canadians severely injure their spinal cord resulting in full or partial paralysis. Despite intense therapy less than 1% of them recovery completely.

Regrowing and reconnecting severed nerve fiber or axons has been exceedingly challenging for the best medical researchers in Canada.

Starting with little more than a passion for engineering and math, 15-year-old Sathya Baskaran of Nepean High School decided to give it a go. And, with guidance of SABC mentors at the University of Ottawa, he eventually developed a series of hollow fiber membrane tubes to mimic the structure of bones that allowed paralyzed rats to move again.

Using hollow fiber tubes to repair spinal cords, a technique called entubulation, is a new and active field of research, but hardly at the Grade 10 level.

Working at the University of Ottawa’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Sathya created tiny novel tubes, each one taking three weeks of painstaking work. “It was vital that the procedures were followed very carefully in order to maintain the structure, pores and the weight of the tubes,” he said.

Sathya then went to the Ottawa Health Research Institute to test the tubes in paralyzed rats and they promoted sufficient axon growth that the rats could move again.

“His results show it is possible to use an entubulation strategy to repair spinal cord after injuries,” concluded Xudong Cao, Sathya’s mentor at the University of Ottawa.

The 15 year old also compared various types of tubes and established that tubes made of a single biodegradble copolymer material worked better than those using two or more copolymers.

Not surprisingly Sathya says his career dream is to apply engineering and technology to life sciences.

“What I really enjoyed about the competition was presenting my project to the judges and guests.”