Repairing damaged neural pathways and curing the conditions such as Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury has not been very successful. But, David Nisbet of Department of Materials Engineering of Monash University has used existing polymer-based biodegradable nanofibres to create a unique 3-D scaffold that could potentially allow stem cells to repair damaged nerves in the human body more quickly and effectively. He used a combined process of electrospinning and chemical treatment to customise the fibre structure, which can then be located within the body. In the treatment, the scaffold is injected into the body at the site requiring nerve regeneration and the stem cells embeded into the scaffold outside the body or once the scaffold is implanted. The nerve cells adhere to and get anchored to the scaffold in the same way ivy grips and weaves through a trellis, forming a bridge in the brain or spinal cord. Over time, the scaffold breaks down and is naturally passed from the body, leaving the newly regenerated nerves intact. Mr Nisbet claims that biodegradable fibres are commonly used in biomedical sciences and regenerative technologies, but his technique of re-engineering them into a 3-D structure is a world first.