Everything may die, nothing may be regenerated
ARTICLE EXTRAS
Fortunately, the experiment was essentially already set up. Some cancer patients received BrdU injections to check for dividing cells in tumor biopsies. Gage sent requests for brains to every pathologist he knew. When the brains arrived they were brought to the microscope room and indeed, BrdU lit up the confocal with labeled cells in the hippocampus and cortex. But the problem was in determining whether these cells were neurons. Double-labeling them with neuronal or glial markers was impossible because the tissue was fixed in paraffin.
The clinicians in Gage's lab were determined to figure out whether neurogenesis occurs in humans. Peter Eriksson, who had taken a sabbatical at the Salk, returned to the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Göteborg, Sweden, and gained permission from cancer patients injected with BrdU to use their brains once they died. Five brains, properly fixed and double- ...
