THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, August 28, 1996            TAG: 9608280413
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE AND DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITERS 
                                            LENGTH:   59 lines

SPEECH BY REEVE CHEERS HIS SURGEON SCIENTISTS SAY SPINAL CORD STUDIES ARE ADVANCING SLOWLY BUT ENCOURAGINGLY.

Virginia surgeon John Jane watched Monday night as actor Christopher Reeve - his former patient - brought tears to the eyes of delegates at the Democratic National Convention.

Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down, the result of a horse-riding accident last year in Culpeper, Va. He spoke Monday in short phrases, pausing to allow his respirator to breathe for him.

Jane, head of the University of Virginia neurosurgery department, appreciated Reeve's call for more research into spinal cord injuries and other medical problems.

For Jane and his colleagues, this year has provided exciting advances that could lead to ways to repair the nerves in a damaged spinal cord. But the victories are small and preliminary.

Hope for patients like Reeve remains distant.

Spinal cord injuries are devastating because the central nervous system - the brain and spinal cord - doesn't heal itself like other parts of the body.

The system is a sort of electrical network that transmits messages to the rest of the body.

Cut nerves in the spinal cord won't regrow connections. Nerve fibers that are damaged but not cut may regenerate a bit, but not enough.

Among the research successes this year:

Swedish scientists, working on rats, developed an operation that helped grow nerve cells across the gap in severed spinal cords.

At U.Va., scientist Oswald Steward and colleagues found rats with a genetic mutation that gives them a special ability to heal after spinal cord injury.

``We're going to get people . . . walking again,'' said Jane.

But these improvements, encouraging scientifically, mean little for the immediate treatment of patients like Reeve. Much more work is needed, Jane said.

That is not a welcome statement to Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The recent Swedish work, for example, left the rats dragging their useless back legs around their cages.

Later, they were killed so doctors could look at their spines.

Before human experiments, the scientists likely will do the same work on cats, which have larger spinal cords, and then on primates, said Jane.

Ingrid Newkirk, a PETA founder, said there's no need to do the same research again, when patients would volunteer for experimental treatments.

``If you cannot move and you want that part of your life back, if they have an experimental treatment would you rather they did it for another decade on rats and cats and monkeys, or would you like them to try it on you?'' Newkirk asked.

Jane said he doesn't like the animal experiments, but there's no choice.

Steward says scientists can't do tests first on humans, because, among other things, they can't get a large enough sample and can't control conditions well enough.

Reeve, who also has campaigned for animal rights causes, did not address the issue specifically in his broad, nonpartisan speech.

In fact, both the U.Va. doctors and PETA's Newkirk praised Reeve's courage and optimism. by CNB