when I was a teenager I know it looks a
long time ago now I then need you you’re
my uncle
while practicing judo and I broke my
ankle I used to be hospitalized I have a
small surgery with a long cast for two
and a half months and then after
physical therapy in about 4-5 months I
was able to run and jump again like
nothing had happened
so despite the frustration the physical
limitation and my mom’s desperation for
that injury I knew that this was a
temporary event and I with time I
wouldn’t got a better unfortunately
there are other kind of injuries like
the ones that affect our nervous system
there are not temporary I leave patients
with the permanent and often severe
disabilities so our nervous system is
not very good the repair itself and
despite this progress in medicine we
still cannot have effective treatment to
repair the nervous system when it’s
damaged one of the reason for this is
that we do not have a full understanding
of the biology of nerve regeneration and
degeneration so I would like to share
with you today two entwines
ideas one innovative approach that we
might have that memorized flow in the
future to treat nerve injuries and the
other the enormous potential that arise
when we look at nature in the most basic
forms and how they have solved the
biological problem that can inform us
our new medical approaches so let me
start with the metaphor imagine you
build this beautiful electric circuit
with very long cables that carry
electricity to very distant villages and
now imagine there is a storm and one of
the cable gets severed and the villages
without electricity
you have two options one
get a brand-new cable from the circuit
down to the village
she’s very time-consuming and in the
mean time the village is suffering
second you go there and repair the cable
when it’s broken which is a more
intuitive way of repair and more
effective with the minimal loss for the
village now let’s bring this analogy to
the human body our brain is like an
electric circuit where we have billions
of neurons that communicate with
electrical current to very distant
villages which are our muscles organ and
tissues and they do that through tiny
cables called axons each neuron has his
own axons and these are axial the
desciption can be very long sometimes
even one meter as in our shadek nerve
this axon normally traveled together
Amanda l–‘s in structure that we call
nerves so each nerve will have 50 of
hundred axons now similarly to a storm
that with several ft circuit an injury
that will cut one axon or a group of
axon will interrupt the communication
within the central and the village and
this is probably the one of the most
dramatic of this is fet is seen in
during spinal cord injury where an
injury in the axons in our spine will
cause an introductory communication
between the brain and the organ and
addition downstream and the patient
becomes paraplegic which means loses
sensitivity to the lower limbs or even
worse tetraplegic if the injury is
really high in the neck which means
losing sensitivity and movement of the
lower limb torso and upper limbs I think
it’s hard to overemphasize the physical
and emotional impact on patients and
their family where these injuries occur
now the human neurons do something
surprising when they when we cut their
axons they do not they tend to do
something counterintuitive they try to
regrow the full length like if you were
trying to rebuild the food a line from
the circuit to the village but you might
wonder now why a skilled neurosurgeon
could not stitch together the individual
axon and this is indeed a very promising
Avenue in your surgery but there are
still a lot of limitation the largest of
one is the actual the dimension of the
axon I told you that these are tiny
cable the diameter of an axon is about
100 or 1000 times that of a millimeter
and to give you a more realistic
reference point in one of your air you
can probably fit about 50 axons so the
new the surgeon might probably stitch
together the tissue surrounding the axon
may be the nerve itself but not
individual axon as he would be desirable
to have a full functional recovery but
now imagine if we had a magical glue
that will allow us to do exactly that to
stitch back together one broken axon
wouldn’t that be amazing and this is
where we can learn by looking at nature
over 50 years ago scientists found that
some animals including the crayfish the
earthworm the leech and the sea slug
they were able to spontaneously repair
their injured axon by stitching them
back together in a process that is
called axonal fusion isn’t that amazing
but how do they do it how do they have
this superpower what molecule do they
use this will remain a mystery for five
decades
and the reason is that we do not have
yet tools to interrogate the genome and
the DNA and find the molecules in these
organisms however about 10 years ago a
game-changing event happened a
combination between engineering and
microscopy allowed us to sever one
single axon in a different species for
which our tools in biology are nor a
knowledge in the genome
is phenomenal is limitless and this is a
small animal is a nematode a round worm
his scientific name is Sonora that is
elegans we call it C elegans or simply
the worm and this is like one millimetre
long the size of a coma or one of the
book you’re just reading or your
abstract book today and then leave
everybody in our garden what my lab and
other lap in the words found that these
animals some axons in these animals also
have that capacity to repair themselves
spontaneously now you can imagine this
providing in an enormous experimental
platform that will allow us to
interrogate how they do it because now
we have tools and in fact my laboratory
together with the lab of Professor
Eugene that University of California in
San Diego and professor Ben bubbly which
are the Technion inciden Israel have
identified what are the molecules that
mediate this process and the one of the
the most important molecule the
mediators are called few surgeons these
function exactly as a biological glue
that allowed this broken axon to get
back together but al bajas do we have
few surgeons yes we do and so do other
organism the animal kingdom and viruses
however in us they do not function in
axonal repair
not yet but they function in other
essential processes such as the
formation of the placenta our muscles
our bones some cells in the eyes and the
way they function even in that case as a
glue they fuse entire cells together
okay however we now know these molecules
we know that there is a group of
molecule they have a phenomenal property
they can repair accents this is like
having a brand new tool and we now need
to learn how to use it what we can do
with it where does potential of these
molecule ends and so my lab is currently
using fusion from different species and
see if we now can repair mammalian
action with the idea of providing the
surgeon with that glue that is missing
injuries are involuntary so we will
never be able to fully prevent them
being able to repair a single axon is a
major goal in neurosurgery and I think
it’s a rich and when we will be able to
do that we’ll be one step closer to make
this permanent injury into temporary
ones that is a significant and
unfortunate trend in the developed world
to forget how much basic science can
inform us or more develop organism like
us so I would like to leave you with the
thought that if we keep an open mind as
a society and medical community and we
are willing to learn from very simple
organism such as a worm we might find
ourselves not only in position to learn
more about nature but also to find cure
for diseases that are currently
incurable thank you
you
long time ago now I then need you you’re
my uncle
while practicing judo and I broke my
ankle I used to be hospitalized I have a
small surgery with a long cast for two
and a half months and then after
physical therapy in about 4-5 months I
was able to run and jump again like
nothing had happened
so despite the frustration the physical
limitation and my mom’s desperation for
that injury I knew that this was a
temporary event and I with time I
wouldn’t got a better unfortunately
there are other kind of injuries like
the ones that affect our nervous system
there are not temporary I leave patients
with the permanent and often severe
disabilities so our nervous system is
not very good the repair itself and
despite this progress in medicine we
still cannot have effective treatment to
repair the nervous system when it’s
damaged one of the reason for this is
that we do not have a full understanding
of the biology of nerve regeneration and
degeneration so I would like to share
with you today two entwines
ideas one innovative approach that we
might have that memorized flow in the
future to treat nerve injuries and the
other the enormous potential that arise
when we look at nature in the most basic
forms and how they have solved the
biological problem that can inform us
our new medical approaches so let me
start with the metaphor imagine you
build this beautiful electric circuit
with very long cables that carry
electricity to very distant villages and
now imagine there is a storm and one of
the cable gets severed and the villages
without electricity
you have two options one
get a brand-new cable from the circuit
down to the village
she’s very time-consuming and in the
mean time the village is suffering
second you go there and repair the cable
when it’s broken which is a more
intuitive way of repair and more
effective with the minimal loss for the
village now let’s bring this analogy to
the human body our brain is like an
electric circuit where we have billions
of neurons that communicate with
electrical current to very distant
villages which are our muscles organ and
tissues and they do that through tiny
cables called axons each neuron has his
own axons and these are axial the
desciption can be very long sometimes
even one meter as in our shadek nerve
this axon normally traveled together
Amanda l–‘s in structure that we call
nerves so each nerve will have 50 of
hundred axons now similarly to a storm
that with several ft circuit an injury
that will cut one axon or a group of
axon will interrupt the communication
within the central and the village and
this is probably the one of the most
dramatic of this is fet is seen in
during spinal cord injury where an
injury in the axons in our spine will
cause an introductory communication
between the brain and the organ and
addition downstream and the patient
becomes paraplegic which means loses
sensitivity to the lower limbs or even
worse tetraplegic if the injury is
really high in the neck which means
losing sensitivity and movement of the
lower limb torso and upper limbs I think
it’s hard to overemphasize the physical
and emotional impact on patients and
their family where these injuries occur
now the human neurons do something
surprising when they when we cut their
axons they do not they tend to do
something counterintuitive they try to
regrow the full length like if you were
trying to rebuild the food a line from
the circuit to the village but you might
wonder now why a skilled neurosurgeon
could not stitch together the individual
axon and this is indeed a very promising
Avenue in your surgery but there are
still a lot of limitation the largest of
one is the actual the dimension of the
axon I told you that these are tiny
cable the diameter of an axon is about
100 or 1000 times that of a millimeter
and to give you a more realistic
reference point in one of your air you
can probably fit about 50 axons so the
new the surgeon might probably stitch
together the tissue surrounding the axon
may be the nerve itself but not
individual axon as he would be desirable
to have a full functional recovery but
now imagine if we had a magical glue
that will allow us to do exactly that to
stitch back together one broken axon
wouldn’t that be amazing and this is
where we can learn by looking at nature
over 50 years ago scientists found that
some animals including the crayfish the
earthworm the leech and the sea slug
they were able to spontaneously repair
their injured axon by stitching them
back together in a process that is
called axonal fusion isn’t that amazing
but how do they do it how do they have
this superpower what molecule do they
use this will remain a mystery for five
decades
and the reason is that we do not have
yet tools to interrogate the genome and
the DNA and find the molecules in these
organisms however about 10 years ago a
game-changing event happened a
combination between engineering and
microscopy allowed us to sever one
single axon in a different species for
which our tools in biology are nor a
knowledge in the genome
is phenomenal is limitless and this is a
small animal is a nematode a round worm
his scientific name is Sonora that is
elegans we call it C elegans or simply
the worm and this is like one millimetre
long the size of a coma or one of the
book you’re just reading or your
abstract book today and then leave
everybody in our garden what my lab and
other lap in the words found that these
animals some axons in these animals also
have that capacity to repair themselves
spontaneously now you can imagine this
providing in an enormous experimental
platform that will allow us to
interrogate how they do it because now
we have tools and in fact my laboratory
together with the lab of Professor
Eugene that University of California in
San Diego and professor Ben bubbly which
are the Technion inciden Israel have
identified what are the molecules that
mediate this process and the one of the
the most important molecule the
mediators are called few surgeons these
function exactly as a biological glue
that allowed this broken axon to get
back together but al bajas do we have
few surgeons yes we do and so do other
organism the animal kingdom and viruses
however in us they do not function in
axonal repair
not yet but they function in other
essential processes such as the
formation of the placenta our muscles
our bones some cells in the eyes and the
way they function even in that case as a
glue they fuse entire cells together
okay however we now know these molecules
we know that there is a group of
molecule they have a phenomenal property
they can repair accents this is like
having a brand new tool and we now need
to learn how to use it what we can do
with it where does potential of these
molecule ends and so my lab is currently
using fusion from different species and
see if we now can repair mammalian
action with the idea of providing the
surgeon with that glue that is missing
injuries are involuntary so we will
never be able to fully prevent them
being able to repair a single axon is a
major goal in neurosurgery and I think
it’s a rich and when we will be able to
do that we’ll be one step closer to make
this permanent injury into temporary
ones that is a significant and
unfortunate trend in the developed world
to forget how much basic science can
inform us or more develop organism like
us so I would like to leave you with the
thought that if we keep an open mind as
a society and medical community and we
are willing to learn from very simple
organism such as a worm we might find
ourselves not only in position to learn
more about nature but also to find cure
for diseases that are currently
incurable thank you
you
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