Controversial company aims to bring brain-dead patients ‘back to life’

It sounds like the plot of a horror movie – but a new trial aims to regenerate the brains of people who have been declared clinically brain dead, by injecting them with stem cells.

A U.S. biotech company, Bioquark, is in the final stages of preparing a test of its techniques on brain dead people on life support systems.

The company attempted to start a trial in India last year – but regulators shut it down, according to Scientific American.

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The idea of the trial is that scientists will inject stem cells into the spinal cord of patients – used alongside electrical stimulation and laser therapy.

The scientists hope that they can grow neurons and spur them to connect with each other – bringing the brain back to life.

Ira Pastor, CEO of Bioquark, said, ‘It’s our contention that there’s no single magic bullet for this, so to start with a single magic bullet makes no sense. Hence why we have to take a different approach.

Last year, Pastor described the company’s work as ‘a step towards the eventual reversal of death in our lifetime.’

If the trial is similar to the one planned last year, the trial participants will be certified brain dead and kept alive only through life support – and will be monitored for several months.

The researchers hope that brain cells might regenerate, using processes seen in the animal kingdom in creatures like salamanders.