A U.S. biotech company has received ethical permission to regenerate the brains of dead people. Yes, you read that right.
Bioquark Inc., which works on the development of novel biologics for complex regeneration and disease reversion, is teaming with Revita Life Sciences, a company focused on translation therapeutics, to stimulate the deceased’s nervous systems to restart their brains. The National Institutes of Health and the Institutional Review Board in the United States and India approved the research team to study 20 brain-dead patients.
“We are very excited about the approval of our protocol,” said Ira S. Pastor, CEO of Bioquark. “With the convergence of the disciplines of regenerative biology, cognitive neuroscience and clinical resuscitation, we are poised to delve into an area of scientific understanding previously inaccessible with existing technologies.”
Translation: We’re not ghouls straight out of central casting for a 1950s horror movie.
Is Death Reversible?
Jokes aside, the research team is headed up by Dr. Calixto Machado, a member of the American Academy of Neurology and a well-known neurological researcher.
The tests will include a variety of therapies on the patients, all of whom have been medically certified as brain dead. Tests will also include nerve stimulation techniques, spinal cord infusions of chemicals and the injection of stem cells into the brain.
There has been no word yet on whether Dr. Frankenstein’s techniques involving electricity via lightning will be tried.
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Brain activity will be monitored for several months after the therapies are administered in search of neurological reactivation signals. The upper spinal cord, which controls cardiorespiratory functions, will be an area of focus.
“Through our study, we will gain unique insights into the state of human brain death, which will have important connections to future therapeutic development for other severe disorders of consciousness, such as coma, and the vegetative and minimally conscious states, as well as a range of degenerative CNS conditions, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease,” said Dr. Sergei Paylian, Founder, President and Chief Science Officer of Bioquark.
Known as the Reanima Project – which sounds a lot like the title of cult horror movie “Reanimator “ – the study will begin soon in India. Dr. Himanshu Bansal of Revita Life Science, who stated he had prior success with two brain dead patients will lead the first stage of the study, according to an article by The Telegraph.
“We are now trying to create a definitive study in 20 subjects and prove that brain death is reversible,” Bansal said. “This will open the door for future research and especially for people who lose their dear ones suddenly.”
No matter what happens, the researchers know they have a long road ahead of them.
“It is a long-term vision of ours that a full recovery in such patients is a possibility, although that is not the focus of this first study. But it is a bridge to that eventuality,” Pastor said.
