After getting shut down in India last year, US-based company announces new plans.

Indian authorities last year pulled the plug on a dubious clinical trial aiming to reverse brain death in 20 people. But, it seems, the resolve of the trial’s leaders is undying. They have revived their plans and will announce a new trial in upcoming months that will take place somewhere in Latin America, Stat reports.

The trial, led by Philadelphia-based biotech firm Bioquark, aims to restore life to those declared clinically brain dead by using a slap-dash potpourri of methods—combining mesenchymal stem cell injections with peptides said to promote brain cell growth, transcranial laser therapy said to jump-start brain cells, and electrical stimulation of the median nerve (a major nerve that runs through the arm) to enliven the senses.

Individually, some of these interventions have hinted at potential benefits for some patient populations in preliminary research. For instance, early studies suggest that stem cell injections into the brain or spinal cord may help some with brain injuries. But there is no indication that the interventions—individually or together—can bring back brain-dead patients. Bioquark and partners have not even tested out their hodgepodge method on animals.

Last November, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) halted the trial, set in Rudrapur, India, before any patients were recruited. The ICMR cited several regulatory lapses. Ira Pastor, CEO of Bioquark, admitted to Science at the time that the team running the clinical trial, dubbed ReAnima, also had trouble convincing family members to let them enroll brain-dead accident victims.

Researchers had roundly determined that the idea is “far-fetched,” bordering on “quackery,” and has “no scientific foundation.” Ethicists also chided the plan, raising concern on the toll it would take on grieving family members. Even if the researchers are successful in restoring a minimally conscious state, it could be traumatizing to family members. And without restoring full function, it would mean that the revived person would require full-time care. Himanshu Bansal, the orthopedic surgeon leading the trial in India, told The Wire last year that he had taken out an insurance plan to cover such patients.

But researchers don’t think it will come to that. “It’s not the absolute craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Charles Cox, a pediatric surgeon who has done research with mesenchymal stem cells at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, told Stat. “But I think the probability of [Bioquark’s plan] working is next to zero.”

Pastor is still optimistic about their revived plan. “I give us a pretty good chance,” he said. “I just think it’s a matter of putting it all together and getting the right people and the right minds on it.”