AT OHIO STATE, PROMISING RESEARCH COULD CHANGE THE LIVES OF THOSE SUFFERING FROM DEVASTATING NEUROLOGICAL CONDITIONS

If there’s one thing people who suffer from neurological diseases and injuries are looking for, it’s hope. So when news breaks about a research development that holds great promise for regenerating damaged nerve fibers in the central nervous system — something that’s never been done in humans before — the emails and calls start flooding in.

Andrew Sas, MD, PhD, can attest to that.

“These family members are very engaged in the scientific community,” says Dr. Sas, an assistant professor and physician-scientist in the Department of Neurology at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. “A lot of them are searching for better treatment than what they currently have. They’re always looking for an opportunity to be part of new clinical trials and therapies, and I don’t blame them.”

In late 2020, the emails started arriving after Ohio State announced that researchers here and at the University of Michigan — including Dr. Sas and Benjamin Segal, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Neurology at the Ohio State College of Medicine and co-director of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center’s Neurological Institute — had discovered in a mouse model a new type of immune cell that not only rescues damaged nerve cells from death, but partially reverses nerve fiber damage.