According to a presentation on Friday at an annual US gathering of scientists, researchers at 17 US medical centers plan to start using a hormone to treat serious brain injuries on a trial basis.

A steroid hormone involved in the female menstrual cycle and pregnancy, progesterone have been shown to cut the death rate from traumatic brain injury (TBI) in half.

It was announced at the annual gathering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego that the final phase of the clinical trials, which is to begin in March, is being funded by the National Institutes of Health through Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

The clinical trial, which will enroll 1,140 people over the next three to six years starting in March is lead by David Wright, professor of emergency medicine at Emory's Medical School.

Wright said in a statement," No new treatment for severe TBI has been approved in over 30 years. I hope the trial will prove that progesterone, along with standard medical trauma care, "works better than standard medical care alone" in reducing brain damage from TBI.”

An earlier trial on about 100 patients showed a 50-percent drop in death in patients treated with progesterone. The hormone also reduced long-term disability, and disability in patients with milder brain injuries.

Studies were also pioneered into the neuro-protective properties of progesterone 25 years ago in testing on laboratory animals by Donald Stein, another emergency medicine professor at Emory.

Especially when the female rats were in the reproductive phase when their body was producing more progesterone, he found that male rats suffered more from brain trauma than female rats.

The death rate in them sank drastically and they returned to full mobility much sooner when Stein injected progesterone into male rats recovering from brain trauma.

Human brain tissue has a large amount of receptors for the hormone Progesterone, which is naturally present in small but measurable amounts in the brains of males and females. This week's raids on current Chief Minister Shibu Soren's aide M. L. Pal, which reportedly unearthed undisclosed assets worth Rs. 65 crore has further cemented the belief that becoming a private secretary to a chief minister is an easy route to riches in Jharkhand.

Vivek, another ex-personal secretary of Soren, still moves around with the chief minister carrying files, though he does not have any official post as Pal continues in his post as the chief minister's personal secretary.

When Koda was being investigated for the Rs. 2,500-crore scam for which he is now in jail awaiting trial, income tax (IT) officials raided house of Harendra Singh, personal secretary of former chief minister Madhu Koda last October and found documents related to investment and assets worth of crores of rupees.

Personal secretaries of other ministers are also not far behind.

After raiding home of Manoj Kumar Singh, an aide of Chandra Prakash Chaudhary, water resources minister in the Koda government last year, IT officials said they had found documents related to investments and assets worth Rs. 12 crore.

An official of the Jharkhand vigilance bureau, on condition of anonymity, told IANS," It seems that personal secretaries are more powerful than senior government officials. It also appears that these aides and ministers connived in corruption and helped both in making fortunes in a short span of time."

Pal used to work in a Coal India Limited (CIL) subsidiary in Ranchi but was sacked because he had got his job with a fake certificate. He became Shibu Soren's personal secretary in August 2008, in an earlier stint by Soren in the chief minister's post. (With Input from Agencies)