Your nervous system is involved with everything that happens in your body... it controls your muscles, gives you the ability to sense hot and cold, and regulates your breathing.
And when something goes wrong with your nervous system... the results can be devastating.
Twenty million Americans suffer from nerve damage.
But a company here in North Central Florida, Axogen, is the leader in the advancement of peripheral nerve repair... and it was developed at UF-- making it GatorMade.
For patients who've had these nerve replacements, they say it's allowed them to experience life normally again...
And for one patient in particular, he says it was an added bonus that the research for these replacements was developed right here in his own community.
"The product is revolutionary. It's changing the way surgeons are able to do surgery...really improve the quality of life for so many people and patients," Marlo Tan-Walpo, Director of Biotechnology Development at Axogen, said.