It sounds like the beginning of a horror film, but now scientists are actually trying to bring people back from the dead using an injection of stem cells.
Philadelphia-based company, Bioquark, has revealed it will start tests in an unidentified country in Latin America this year, after plans to start ‘ReAnima’ in India were already halted by government officials.
In November 2016 the controversial experiments had the plug pulled by the Indian Council of Medical Research, after the doctors claimed they wanted the patients to show “flickers of consciousness, such as moving their eyes”, according to ScienceMag.
But now the team of scientists are set to trial the same stem cell therapy elsewhere in the world.
Having already developed a series of injections able to ‘reboot’ parts of the brain, even when the patient has been declared brain dead, they are ready to start clinical trials on approximately twenty humans aged between 15 and 65 who died from traumatic brain injuries.
The study will not be tested on animals, according to Ira Pastor, CEO of Bioquark.
The first step involves harvesting stem cells from the patient’s own blood before injecting them back into their body. Then the patient would be given a dose of peptides injected into their spinal cord.
Finally they would undergo a 15-day course of laser and median nerve stimulation while monitoring the patient with MRI scans, to check for any signs of life.
Pastor told Business Insider: “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.”
Despite Pastor’s optimism in looking for a new location, consent is still likely to be an issue when the person participating in the trial is legally dead and cannot give their approval.