Severed nerve or spinal cord bypass / repair
As many as a half-million people per year suffer spinal cord injuries. The resulting paralysis, especially in younger adults, often comes from trauma associated with a spinal cord injury. Repairing or “bridging” a severed spinal cord has long been a goal of doctors and researchers. Recent advances show that we are making progress, particularly when treatment begins immediately after injury.
By the end of the 2020s, multiple technologies to repair damaged spinal cords will be available, building on work done in using electronics (such as in DARPA’s Bridging the Gap program) or stem cells (such as recent work done at Yale) and injuries to the spinal cord will no longer mean a life of paralysis.