A renowned U.S. biophysicist exploring super-healing and age reversal attributes his breakthroughs more to his sixth sense than to logic and critical thinking.
"We all follow our intuition," Jianjie Ma, 47, a top researcher at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, tells The (Newark) Star-Ledger.
Intuition, or a deep inner knowing and a felt sense of sureness, has raised Ma's perceptions, leading him and his colleagues to make extraordinary discoveries that colleagues say unravel deep mysteries that Ma found were not so mysterious at all.
Ma and his colleagues identified the protein MG53 as a key initiator of membrane repair in damaged tissue, from normal wear and tear of individual cells to widespread catastrophic trauma.
A cell without the protein deflates and dies if pricked even once with a needle, but a cell bolstered with MG53 quickly recovers, repairing its torn outer layer almost immediately, Ma's research published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the American Journal of Physiology-Cell Physiology indicates.
"His findings are very exciting," Rutgers University Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy Associate Professor Sungchul Ji, who doesn't know Ma, tells The Star-Ledger.
The research "may change how we treat a number of diseases in the next few years," said Peter Amenta, dean of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
"In our laboratory, we always start with what nature gives us," Ma says. "In this environment, we have to be innovative and create."
The newspaper says Ma is "giddy, almost childlike in his enthusiasm."
A company Ma created to make MG53 therapy drugs tested in mice is proceeding with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval process, backed by a combination of grants and venture capital.
Ma and his colleagues envision the drug eventually used as a topical, an injection or even a nutritional supplement protecting cells — like those of the heart — from regular deterioration.
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