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If you are a stroke victim and want to participate in the trial, contact the Chattanooga Center for Neurologic Research, 423-648-0304.
Doctors at Erlanger hospital are looking for stroke victims to participate in a clinical trial of a potentially groundbreaking treatment that could restore movement to paralyzed arms or legs, even as long as five years after a stroke.
Only a handful of stroke victims will qualify for the trial, but the potential is revolutionary, according to Dr. Thomas Devlin, director of the Chattanooga Center for Neurologic Research, which is housed at the hospital and will oversee local patients in the trial.
The trial will involve using a form of stem cell taken from bone marrow that is genetically altered and inserted into a patient’s brain in the areas damaged by the stroke.
“To take cells from bone marrow and put them into brain cells is as space-age as putting a man on the moon,” Devlin said. “It is as significant as that.”