Imagining the future of spinal cord injury...

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Can an injured spinal cord be repaired? What kinds of rehabilitation strategies work best? What makes an environment truly accessible? The past decade has produced a wealth of discoveries that have completely altered the way we think about spinal cord injury and if we have learned anything, it is that there is no single answer to any of these questions.

The imminent breakthroughs that will help people to fully adapt - and eventually fully recover from their injuries will be a result of an evolving combination of therapies and treatments, customized for every individual, whether newly injured or permanently paralyzed.

In short, the future of spinal cord research lies in the ability to create a community of experts. An environment where researchers, clinicians, front-line practitioners and people with spinal cord injury can collaborate on solutions that offer new hope and new possibilities.

It is this vision that drives the research priorities of the Foundation. Together with our partners, the Foundation supports collaborative, interdisciplinary research that focuses on the translation of new knowledge and discoveries to improve lives today, and contribute to finding a cure for spinal cord injury.

Primer on Stem Cell Research

In 1998, scientists isolated pluripotent stem cells from early human embryos and grew them in culture. In the few years since this discovery, evidence has emerged that these stem cells can become almost any of the 200 known specialized cells of the body and, thus, may generate replacement cells to repair or replace cells or tissues that are damaged or destroyed by diseases and disabilities.
Meanwhile, as the political process restricts research in many areas of stem cells and therapeutic cloning, a flurry of information suggests great potential for adult stem cells.
There is tremendous expectation for stem cell therapy; at this time, it is too soon to say just how or when stem cells from any source will be useful for the treatment of disease or trauma. More research for all types of stem cells is needed. What follows is a brief primer on stem cell terminology.


Stem cells
Primitive, unspecialized cells that have the capacity to divide for indefinite periods in culture. They have the potential to produce both new stem cells and differentiated, specialized cells. Embryonic stem cells are 'totipotent,' meaning that they can give rise to all the different cell types in the human body, while other types of stem cells are more restricted in their potential, giving rise to only a subset of tissue types (e.g., hematopoietic stem cells, which can differentiate into all the different blood cell types but usually not other types of tissues).


Pluripotent stem cells
Can give rise to the cells that develop from the embryonic germ layers, from which all the cells of the body arise. Pluripotent stem cells are derived from early human embryos or fetal tissue destined to be part of the gonads. Pluripotent cells can also be created by manipulating the genetic content of adult cells (see Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells)

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPS Cells)
A type of pluripotent stem cell derived from an adult cell such as a skin cell, by inducing an expression of certain genes that reprogram the cell. iPS cells are believed to be identical in many respects to embryonic pluripotent stem cells, including the ability to form all cells in the body and to reproduce themselves indefinitely; the full extent of their relation to embryonic stem cells is still being assessed. iPS cells were first produced in 2006 from mouse cells and in 2007 from human cells.