On August 20, 2025, Tel Aviv University scientists reported a “breakthrough” treatment for spinal cord injury (SCI).
The spinal cord is composed of neurons that receive sensation from the skin and transmit this information to the brain. At the same time, the brain sends signals via the spinal cord to muscles to control movement. Neurons do not repair or replicate themselves after injury, as do, for example, skin cells. Within the spinal cord, scar tissue develops after a SCI, blocking sensation from the skin and signals needed to move limbs. Current potential treatments for SCI include implanting neurons or cells engineered to turn into neurons to bridge the scar, to eventually re-establish sensation and functioning.
However, as examined in animal models of SCI, current experimental approaches do nothing to the scar and do not mimic the natural network found in the spinal cord needed to re-establish functioning. Furthermore, many current implant therapies utilize implantation of cells that are foreign to the patient, thus provoking an immune response that could destroy the implanted cells and jeopardize the patient’s health.
Tel Aviv University professor Tal Divr and his team have found a way to re-establish the spinal network by treating the patient’s own blood cells such that they grow into neurons and growing these neurons in a matrix created from the patient’s own fat cells. Thus, the new treatment avoids a foreign body immune response and builds a 3-D network of neurons instead of a disorganized soup.
Tel Aviv University stated that “the first implant in a human patient is expected within about a year.” Furthermore, Professor Divr’s method could be used to repair other organs, such as the heart and eye, in which 3-D structure and prolonged cell survival are critical for repair and functional recovery.
Essential to the development of this novel approach to SCI and organ repair is the use of animals. “The reseachers first tested the implant in lab animals” — in mice with a SCI.
Additional promising news for SCI patients is a non-cellular approach to increase functioning via an implanted brain-computer interface that relays the patient’s thoughts to a controller that in turn activates external devices such as videogames, a small step toward independence. One of the many companies pursing an electronic approach to give SCI patients their life back is Elon Musk’s Neuralink. These companies have also used animal models to assess efficacy and safety prior to initiating human studies.
Testing in animals is critical for new treatments destined to help people — and not just for safety and efficacy. In reaction to the infamous “Doctors’ Trail,” in which the Allies exposed horrid human experiments performed by Nazis on unsuspecting and unwilling prisoners, a set of 10 points became the basis of the “Nuremberg Code,” the foundation of modern medical ethics. The Code demanded, among a number of things, that voluntary consent be obtained from patients who are to undergo medical experiments and that patients be allowed to end participation at any time. With respect to the experiment itself, the Code stipulated that “the experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation.” Thus, to “ avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury,” disability or death it is essential that clinical studies be preceded by studies in animals.
Animal rights extremist groups have denounced the use of animals for biomedical research. Any human interaction with animals is shrilly condemned. Groups such as the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) have made headline-grabbing yet vacuous claims against research universities and private institutions such as Neuralink concerning laboratory animal welfare. In 2003, PCRM spokesman Jerry Vlasak “openly endorsed the murder of doctors who use animals in their medical research.” Vlasak has served as spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front, an animal rights terrorist group.
A 2015 public opinion poll showed that liberals and Democrats were more likely to oppose the use of laboratory animals than conservatives and Republicans, who mostly favor laboratory animal use. It appears now that conservatives denounce the use of laboratory animals. Perhaps this is because of increasing distrust of scientists in general over time. The public relations disaster in the form of Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, did not help, nor did the emergence of highly ideological attacks on preclinical biomedical research in the form of White Coat Waste Project.
The conservative Trump administration, of all things, has earned hosannas from animal rights extremist groups, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the PCRM, for its opposition to the use of laboratory animals.
The insanity espoused by animal rights extremists has yet to affect Israeli scientific and political leadership. American companies like Neuralink are facing an uphill, politically mediated battle as well as scientific competition from overseas. American scientists must be allowed to use, in a responsible and humane way, all means to make American biomedical science great again.
Image via Pixabay.