In India forbidden to raise the dead
Indian Council of medical research (ICMR) has banned the experiments on the resurrection of the people after the death of the brain, are scheduled Indian-American ReAnima project. The national Institute of medical statistics under ICMR withdrew the project from the register of clinical trials, says Science.
ReAnima — a joint project of the American biotechnology company Bioquark and Indian Revita Life Sciences — received approval to conduct experiments in may 2016.
The researchers planned to draw brain dead as a result of injuries 20 people in the hospital Anupam, located in Rudrapur, Uttarakhand.
The brain death is the complete and irreversible loss of brain function (especially its stem responsible for breathing, and circulation), which in most countries serves as a criterion for death. Although humans do not have the ability to significant regeneration of the Central nervous system (CNS), some fish and amphibians can repair and remodel a substantial part of brain after the injury. The creators of ReAnima decided to reproduce this process in people aged 15-65 years with a newly diagnosed brain dead who are on artificial lung ventilation (so-called as “the living corpse”).
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For this they expected to use a combination of several techniques. One of them is in the introduction under the meninges developed Bioquark mixture of peptides BQ-A. It is similar in composition to the set of regulatory factors in the egg immediately after fertilization. According to the creators, these peptides contribute to effective tissue regeneration.
Along with BQ-A experimenters planned to introduce mesenchymal stem cells that can develop into various cells of the nervous tissue. As additional methods of influence they was going to have the intracranial stimulation laser with injected optical fibers, and electrical stimulation of the median nerve (the main nerve of the hands, starting from the brachial plexus). As shown earlier, the latter procedure helps to recovery from coma after traumatic brain injury.
According to representatives of the ReAnima, during the experiments, they managed with the help of this Toolkit to help several patients who were in a coma, and return to the vegetative state after brain death two people.
The aim of the first phase of the test was to draw the death of the brain to a state of minimal consciousness (it resembles a coma, but the patient sometimes responds to the environment, such as blinking or following the light source). As noted by the experimenters, know quite a large number of cases from this state, the person returns to full consciousness. The results were scheduled to be received by April 2017.
Intentions ReAnima immediately after their announcement attracted criticism from experts in various fields who have doubts as to the practical possibilities of their implementation, and the ethical aspect of such experiments.
The reason for this decision ICMR discovered were several regulatory gaps in the regulation tests.
In particular, the researchers did not seek the permission of the Indian inspector General for control over the circulation of medicines, which is a prerequisite for clinical trials.
The head of the hospital Anupam and owner of Revita Life Sciences Himanshu Bansal (Himanshu Bansal) said that this question is in the competence of the inspector General and does not apply to ICMR. Executive Director Bioquark Ira Pastor (Pastor Ira) announced that a ban will not stop the ICMR project and, if necessary, experiments will be conducted outside India.
On a similar ambitious project is currently running international collaboration HEAVEN/GEMINI under the leadership of Italian neurocirugia Sergio canavero (Sergio Canavero). She plans to head transplant paralyzed man on the body of a dead donor. To date involved in the project, researchers conducted a series of experiments on the recovery of the spinal cord in animals is a key task for future transplantation. And plans, and projects Canavero and his colleagues also faced sharp criticism.
Oleg Lishchuk