Research
“Every great scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next, they say it had been discovered before. Lastly, they say they always believed it.”
Louis Agassiz, 1807-1873
Astroglial Innovations is a purpose-built medical start-up developing technology for neuroregeneration of the damaged spinal cord. The method was developed by a team of neurologists and neurosurgeons from the Medical University of Wrocław and the Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy of the Polish Academy of Sciences – Dr. Paweł Tabakow and Dr. Wojciech Fortuna. This duo has spent the last dozen or so years refining the neurosurgical and biotechnological aspects of the method, which is ready to be used in clinical practice. In the history of work on the development of the Gliomatrix™ product (autologous transplant of olfactory glial cells in the place of spinal cord damage), the team of prof. Tabakow and Dr. Fortuna has already successfully performed spinal reconstruction surgery using technology in its first, prototype version – after the procedure, a paralyzed patient with a completely severed spinal cord showed significant improvement in sensation, voluntary movements and control over physiological and sexual functions – the results of these studies were published in 2014 [Cell Transplant. 2014;23(12):1631-55].
Our therapy is based on the unique properties of OECs to interact with host spinal cord astrocytes that, leads to opening of the astrocytic barrier and allowing for central axon elongation. Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) and olfactory nerve fibroblasts (ONFs) are able to attract and guide the regrowing axons to their target neuronal populations. This unique neurotrophic activity of OECs, the miracle cells from the central nervous system, has been described in hundreds of scientific papers in the last 4 decades (Fig.2).
Astroglial Innovations takes a firm stand on the research made by our and other scientific groups in the past. To learn more about this research, read our Whitepaper here. The positive response of scientists, other clinicians, patients, and media worldwide, led our group to start in 2016 a worldwide patient recruitment for the Wroclaw Walk Again Project (Clinical Trials gov identifier NCT03933072). This project was funded by the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation (NSIF; https://www.nsif.org.uk/). From about 700 applications we selected two patients with thoracic spinal cord transection to be potential candidates for the spinal cord reconstruction therapy.
In 2023 the leaders of the Wroclaw Walk Again project, together with scientists and managers originating from Pure Biologics company, established a new business entity – Astroglial Innovations.