Spinal Cord Organoids Help Test Paralysis Treatment

Organoids developed from human stem cells modeled spinal cord injuries, providing a powerful in vitro tool to evaluate regenerative therapies for CNS injuries.

Original written by Sneha Khedkar and published on The Nutshell section of The Scientist on Feb 13, 2026

Despite being the most common cause of permanent disability, there are few effective treatments for spinal cord injuries. A new organoid model now offers a platform to test regenerative therapies, potentially accelerating the development of new therapies. Image credit:© iStock.com, Charday Penn

Injuries in the central nervous system (CNS)—such as those in the spinal cord—trigger glial scar formation, which inhibits nerve regeneration from healthy neurons surrounding the damage. This results in impaired motor, sensory, or autonomic functions.

Despite such spinal cord injuries being the leading cause of death and permanent disability and affecting up to 500,000 people globally each year, effective therapies remain rare.

Introducing a laceration using a scalpel in the spinal cord organoids resulted in cell death near the injury site (red). Live cells are stained green. Samuel Stupp/Northwestern University

Now, scientists have generated organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and found that these accurately capture the key features in spinal cord injuries. The results, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, indicate that human spinal cord organoids offer a promising in vitro platform to evaluate novel treatments for such fatal injuries.

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