Category Archives: Spinal Cord Injury Treatment

Researchers hope a "cure" for serious disabilities could soon be found in a Wollongong laboratory. A $4.7 million research program launched yesterday could produce a major breakthrough in the treatment of muscle, nerve or spinal cord damage, according to Professor Gordon Wallace. The program will be based at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science at the University of Wollongong's Innovation Campus in Fairy Meadow. An elite team of international researchers and students has been assembled to develop tiny implants with the capacity to trigger the regrowth of damaged nerves and muscles. Remotely activated electrical stimulation would trigger repair and after that, further stimulation would cause the degradation of the implant should it be deemed no longer needed. Trials on rats and mice will begin later this year and if it proves successful, the implications could be enormous. "I think all of us involved in this know the opportunity we've been given comes with the sense of responsibility to deliver to the people who need these advances," Prof Wallace said. "The implications are huge for people suffering nerve damage, which is usually a result of trauma or an accident. "It's an exciting and challenging area but we … Continue reading →

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - An Indianapolis man is defying the odds by recovering from a spinal cord injury. Thirty-year-old Chris Leeuw is getting ready to take part in the Louisville Marathon. Not to run it. His goal is to walk a mile. "Walking, just the simple task of walking is incredibly uncomfortable. But the fact that I'm able to do it is pretty amazing" said Leeuw. Just two years ago, Leeuw was a quadriplegic. A freak accident ended with his neck being broken. Leeuw says the injury happened after he jumped off a bridge into a river. A second person doing the same thing, at the same time landed on top of him. The weight and impact of the man caused the injury. "It was instantly like a light switch. I didn't lose consciousness, but I knew something happened." Paralyzed from the neck down, medics airlifted Leeuw to IU Health Methodist Hospital. Doctors told him he would probably never walk or use his arms again. "Sometimes I just think back of being in that ICU and staring at nothing but the ceiling tiles. That's all you can stare at. You are really in disbelief. There's like no way this just happened, … Continue reading →

Long-term commitment to evaluating the impact of SUN13837 on neurological function discussed at American Spinal Injury Association symposium PARAMUS, N.J., April 23, 2012 /CNW/ - Today, Asubio announced the initiation of a landmark Phase 2 clinical trial of SUN13837, an investigational medication being developed to improve neurological function in patients with newly diagnosed acute spinal cord injury. In accordance with its internal focus on scientific rigor, Asubio recently discussed its endpoint development activities at a peer-attended symposium at the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) annual meeting. The company also reinforced its long-term strategic and financial commitment to completing the clinical trial. Asubio is working with 60 acute trauma centers throughout the United States and Canada to enroll 164 patients in the clinical trial. Trauma centers must first sign on to participate in the study, and then attending trauma physicians and nurses will identify eligible patients when they arrive at a facility with a spinal cord injury. Physicians or trauma center representatives can write Ben Levinson at blevinson@asubio.com for more information about participation, or visit ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01502631). "Valid clinical trial programs, such as the acute spinal cord injury study being supported by Asubio provide an objective path to understanding and improving … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (Apr. 19, 2012) A new Northwestern Medicine brain-machine technology delivers messages from the brain directly to the muscles -- bypassing the spinal cord -- to enable voluntary and complex movement of a paralyzed hand. The device could eventually be tested on, and perhaps aid, paralyzed patients. "We are eavesdropping on the natural electrical signals from the brain that tell the arm and hand how to move, and sending those signals directly to the muscles," said Lee E. Miller, the Edgar C. Stuntz Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the lead investigator of the study, which was published in Nature. "This connection from brain to muscles might someday be used to help patients paralyzed due to spinal cord injury perform activities of daily living and achieve greater independence." The research was done in monkeys, whose electrical brain and muscle signals were recorded by implanted electrodes when they grasped a ball, lifted it and released it into a small tube. Those recordings allowed the researchers to develop an algorithm or "decoder" that enabled them to process the brain signals and predict the patterns of muscle activity when the monkeys wanted to move the ball. These … Continue reading →

UQ research with the potential to develop improved treatment options for spinal cord injuries has received funding for four years from SpinalCure Australia. Dr Marc Ruitenberg from UQ's School of Biomedical Sciences has been awarded a prestigious Career Development Fellowship to support ongoing research into the inflammatory response to spinal cord injury. There is overwhelming evidence that the inflammatory response to spinal cord injury is a double-edged sword," Dr Ruitenberg said. "Some aspects can cause additional damage while others appear to be contributing to tissue repair. Our ultimate research goal is to understand which aspects of the inflammatory process worsen injury outcomes, to enable the development of new and effective anti-inflammatory therapies that can improve recovery. Dr Ruitenberg's laboratory is concentrating on the innate immune system because of the dominant role that it is thought to play in the inflammatory pathology associated with spinal cord injury. He is also actively involved in the development of ultra-high field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to study the injured spinal cord and to aid better translation of promising research findings from the laboratory bench to the clinic. This fellowship is a major boost to the research activities in Dr Ruitenberg's laboratory and will … Continue reading →

From being unable to move the majority of his body in 2008 to taking steps with leg braces today, Mount Shastas Corben Brooks is proving that a spinal cord injury isnt the end of the world. Three and a half years after a high school football injury left him a quadriplegic, Mount Shastas Corben Brooks is focused on recovery while in New Delhi, India, where hes receiving a third round of stem cell treatments not yet available in the United States. The ever-optimistic 20 year old can now stand with minimal assistance, take steps with leg braces, wiggle his toes, partially close his hands and feel the majority of his legs. Corben said hes looking forward to Labor Day Weekend, when his family will host Thunder in the Park in Mount Shasta, an event which will include the raffle drawing for a custom built motorcycle dubbed Corbens Ride, as well as live music, a chili cookoff, pancake breakfast and a poker run. Thunder in the Park will coincide with the Mount Shasta Police Departments Show & Shine car show in attempt to keep visitors in Mount Shasta the entire weekend. Without the support of our community and countless other people … Continue reading →

BOULDERThe University of Colorado has received a $30 million payout for a Botox treatment that one of its faculty members invented in the late 1990s. The treatment, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August, was developed to treat urinary incontinence in people with neurological conditions, such as spinal-cord injury and multiple sclerosis, who have overactive bladders. "Upon that approval, we went to a number of investment organizations that purchase royalty streams, and we conducted, in essence, an auction," explained David Allen, the director of CU's Technology Transfer Office. Since the inventor is no longer at the university, royalties are divided between the university and the Tech Transfer Office. The Camera learned of the payout through an open-records request that included an e-mail written by CU president Bruce Benson updating the regents on the matter. Benson, in the e-mail from January, said there is a possibility to earn $10 million more from the monetization of the treatment. "This has spurred our thinking into how we can do a better job maximizing our licensing of intellectual property," Benson wrote in the e-mail. "We have determined to form a science advisory committee to guide our efforts in the area." The … Continue reading →

POSTED AT 09:27 PM ON Mar. 19, 2012 (UPDATED AT 09:27 PM ON Mar. 19, 2012) PRINT | Email | Editor | SHARE | | Recommend(0) The Childrens Therapy Center at IU Health-Bloomington Hospital has a new way of rehabilitating patients with spinal cord injuries. The center was recently awarded a $6,800 Quality of Life grant from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, a nonprofit organization that aids in curing spinal injuries. The award was one of 76 grants that added up to almost $450,000 for more than 100 organizations nationwide. The Quality of Life grants are awarded twice every year to nonprofit organizations and projects dedicated to improving the lives of people who live with paralysis or other spinal cord injuries. The grant for the Childrens Therapy Center has helped fund a 30-foot Solo-Step System. The system can be portable or mounted to the ceiling on a track, which is attached to a lanyard and allows the therapist to try to improve the patients gait long-term. The full amount of the grant was spent on the Solo-Step System, said Pam Felts, manager at the Childrens Therapy Center. Patients have already begun using the new equipment, she said. I saw … Continue reading →

Newswise MANHATTAN, KAN. -- Research from a Kansas State University professor may make it easier to recover after spinal cord injury or to study neurological disorders. Mark Weiss, professor of anatomy and physiology, is researching genetic models for spinal cord injury or diseases such as Parkinson's disease. He is developing technology that can advance cellular therapy and regenerative medicine -- a type of research that can greatly improve animal and human health. "We're trying to build tools, trying to build models that will have broad applications," Weiss said. "So if you're interested in neural differentiation or if you're interested in response after an injury, we're trying to come up with cell lines that will teach us, help us to solve a medical mystery." Weiss' research team has perfected a technique to use stem cells to study targeted genetic modifications. They are among a handful of laboratories in the world using these types of models for disease. The research is an important step in the field of functional genomics, which focuses on understanding the functions and roles of these genes in disease. The researchers are creating several tools to study functional genomics. One such tool involves developing new ways to use … Continue reading →

Once, she danced the night away and was crowned the 1967 Holbrook High prom queen. Today, Joyce Stevens Celms, 62, lies in a bed in the spinal cord injury unit of Bostons Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, without movement in her legs or feet, following an accident in her Holbrook home. At about 9:30 p.m. on Feb. 20, Celms caught the tip of her boot on the linoleum in her kitchen and fell onto the floor with such momentum that her neck hyper-extended and she suffered a spinal cord injury. Celms sister, Nancy Stevens, did not hear her faint cries for help. I was asleep upstairs and could not hear her barely audible cries for help, which she knew, Stevens said. More than 10 hours later, Stevens discovered her sister stretched out on the floor, her eyes closed. Stevens cried out her sisters name. Thank God, her right eye flew open and she tried to talk, Stevens said. She remarkably survived the night. Celms was rushed to South Shore Hospital for emergency treatment, where doctors assessed the extent of the damage to her spinal cord and transferred her to Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. Upon arriving at Brigham and Womens, Celms … Continue reading →