Jerusalem Scientists Successfully Produced Genetically Engineered Synapses – A First Step That Could Lead to Repairing Damaged Brains

What leader do we contact to make ABSOLUTELY SURE THIS RESEARCH GETS FOLLOWED UP AND CREATES STROKE PROTOCOLS? Specific names only,  I want someone to take  personal responsibility to get it done.  We have NO LEADERS IN STROKE willing to take any responsibility. I think this is much more likely than stem cells since it could be used to specifically connect problem areas, whereas stem cells are just thrown in there hoping something connects.

Jerusalem Scientists Successfully Produced Genetically Engineered Synapses – A First Step That Could Lead to Repairing Damaged Brains

C. elegans – fortunately referred to in a short version because its C. stands for Caenorhabditis – is a free-living transparent nematodeworm just about one millimeter in length whose home is the soil. It was made famous in 1963 by molecular biologist Sydney Brenner, who suggested that it be researched, primarily in the field of development of the neurons (nerve cells in the brain). Brenner chose the worm because it was more complicated than other well-understood organisms such as bacteria, yet still simple enough to study in depth. He also co-discovered messenger RNA, which is the basis of two effective COVID-19 vaccines.

During the last half-century, the tiny worm has since been extensively used as a model organism for research into human disease and became the first multicellular organism to have its whole genome sequenced, even though it lacked both a circulatory and a respiratory system. C. elegans is still widely used in biology today, with some 15,000 scientific papers published in the past decade that include a reference to the worm.  

Born in South Africa, he moved to the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and later crossed the Atlantic Ocean to establish the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, and work at the Salk Institute. For this work, he shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with two other biologists. 

Now, researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) have successfully produced genetically engineered synapses to bypass neural damage – a step that they regard as a first step to what one day could allow scientists to genetically repair damaged brains.