WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Researchers at Indiana's Purdue University say they have begun testing nanoparticles as a possible treatment for spinal and brain injuries.
School of Veterinary Medicine official and research team leader Richard Borgens said nanoparticles could potentially be able to deliver the polymer polyethylene glycol to injured cells to help repair internal damage in the body, a university news release said last Wednesday.
"These particles are so tiny they can't be seen with a regular microscope. They are about the size of a large virus so you can inject as many as you need and they are safe inside bodies," the Center for Paralysis Research official said.
The group's groundbreaking medical efforts have primarily focused on rats and guinea pigs with brain or spinal injuries. But Borgens said he suspects that the results from those experiments indicate that the use of polyethylene glycol, also known as PEG, would be extremely useful in human patients as well.
"All ambulances should have PEG on board," he said. "It can probably save thousands of people from more severe head and spinal damage," the Borgens, a Welden School of Biomedical Engineering researcher, said.
