Every once in a while I’m so impressed with news about medical advances that I simply have to blog them. Yesterday, I read about a team of researchers at Ohio state university who had discovered a new way to keep HIV from infecting human cells, and I did not post a link. So now I simply had to tell you, my gentle readers, about this hopeful medical advacnce:

MIT Researchers Restore Vision In Rodents Blinded By Brain Damage

“Rodents blinded by a severed tract in their brains’ visual system had their sight partially restored within weeks, thanks to a tiny biodegradable scaffold invented by MIT bioengineers and neuroscientists.

This technique, which involves giving brain cells an internal matrix on which to regrow, just as ivy grows on a trellis, may one day help patients with traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries and stroke.

The study, which will appear in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the week of March 13-17, is the first that uses nanotechnology to repair and heal the brain and restore function of a damaged brain region.”