Liquid marbles allow for spinal cord regeneration

More than 12,000 Australians live with spinal cord paralysis and there is at least one new occurrence every day. But a development in spinal cell transplantation repair has been discovered through the merging of neurobiology and microfluidic engineering - using floating 3D marbles, cells cultured directly on the injury site.

“Liquid marbles are a remarkably simply way to culture cells in 3D,” says Dr James St John, from Griffith University’s Eskitis Institute for Drug Discovery. “A droplet of liquid that contains the cells is placed upon a carpet of teflon powder to create a liquid marble which can then be floated on cell culture medium.”

“By having an air interface between the liquid marble and the cell culture medium upon which it floats, the liquid marble easily rotates. This allows the cells within the liquid marbles to freely associate to form natural structures without the confines imposed upon them by other 3D culturing methods.”

“Successful partial regeneration of a completely severed spinal cord in a human was achieved recently in an overseas study, thus demonstrating this therapy can work,” says lead researcher Griffith PhD student Raja Vadivelu.

“What is now needed is to make the transplantation therapy more effective and suitable for patients with a range of different spinal cord injuries.”

The new method enables transplanted cells to survive and better integrate into the injury site. In turn, this will help the spinal cord to regenerate more effectively.

The technique was developed between researchers from Griffith University; Professor Nam-Trung Nguyen (Queensland Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre); collaborated with Dr Jenny Ekberg (Queensland University of Technology) and scientists in Spain