Tiny worm could lead to nerve injury treatments

A small transparent roundworm with the remarkable ability to self-heal may hold the secret to treating nerve injuries in humans. In a study published today in renowned scientific journal Nature , University of Queensland scientists have discovered the molecular mechanisms that allow severed nerves in roundworms to fuse back together. Project leader Dr Massimo Hilliard , from the UQ Queensland Brain Institute (QBI), said the findings provided hope for treating nerve injuries. "This will now open new avenues to try to exploit this knowledge in other systems closer to human physiology, and hopefully move further towards solving nerve injuries," Dr Hilliard said. "We'll now try to understand if a similar process occurs in vertebrates and, if it doesn't, how we can use what we have learned from worms to make it happen and then scale it up towards humans," he said. Dr Hilliard said neurosurgery could be combined with molecular biology in the future to deliver clinical outcomes, and perhaps treat conditions such as spinal cord injury or vascular damage where healthy neurons were injured. "Neurosurgery alone to fix nerve injuries by effectively trying to stitch together broken nerves has had limited success," he said.