U2FP CureCast

CureCast co-host Jason Stoffer was injured 5 and ½ years ago. Earlier this year, his friend Lewis Johnson sustained a spinal cord injury. The similarities are uncanny: they were both in the same career field; they both went to the same inpatient hospital; and they both attended the same inpatient rehab facility. For Jason, the big question on the table is this: What has changed in 5 years? What progress are we making? Are newly injured folks getting the same message I got from my clinicians? We asked today’s guests to give us some high level answers to those questions. Dr. Shekar Kurpad is Professor and Chair of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Candy Tefertiller is the Executive Director of Research and Evaluation at Craig Hospital in Denver. More info here: u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-82.html

What if we could take all the neural trash that forms in the spinal cord after an injury, the stuff that hinders connectivity, and turn it into treasure? This is the idea behind cellular reprogramming. Today's podcast guest, Dr. Arshak Alexanian, is a biochemist and the Chief Scientific Officer at the Wisconsin biotech firm, Cell Reprogramming & Therapuetics, LLC. We met Dr. Alexanian not too long ago while advocating for our $3M SCI Research Grant bill in the Wisconsin legislature. Dr. Alexanian believes so strongly in the possibility of cellular reprogramming that he took the leap out of academia and into private business to help make it happen.

Today's guest on the podcast is Kym Eisner, the executive director of the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation. This year happens to be the Neilsen Foundation’s 20th anniversary. For those who are unfamiliar with the Foundation, its namesake Craig H. Neilsen, was an entrepreneur who sustained a spinal cord injury in 1985 and formed the foundation in 2002. This was an attempt to catalyze research and support for people living with a spinal cord injury. In the last 20 years, The Neilsen Foundation has contributed almost $360,000,000 to both research and nonprofit organizations serving people with spinal cord injuries. Given this milestone, we wanted to talk with Kym Eisner about the foundation’s work, hear some of the history of the foundation and learn what’s going on right now. More info here: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-80.html

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to participate in an SCI clinical research trial? How do you find out about these trials? How do you find out about these trials? Does anyone make a recovery? What are some reasons that you might take the leap - or not? On today’s podcast, you’ll get some answers to these questions and many more. Our guests, Mandy Mackenzie and Laura Grabowski, have each participated in a number of clinical trials and we’ve put them in the hot seat to give you an idea what it’s like. More info here: u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-79.html

Today’s episode is a rebroadcast of our conversation with Grégoire Courtine from two years ago. Dr. Courtine has been pivotal in the successful application of epidural stimulation in humans with SCI, in both his research and device commercialization. In this episode, we talk about Dr. Courtine’s motivation to study spinal cord injury and epidural stimulation in particular. We discuss the translation of his early rodent model research into humans and the mechanism of the therapy, such as targeted modulated stimulation coupled with intention and the reorganization of spared neural tissue. We also discuss the device’s application and it’s outcomes in different severities of injury, as well as his hopes for future application. More info here: u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-78.html

Today our guest is Dan Hellenbrand, a renaissance man of sorts. Dan sustained a cervical injury (C5-6) as a carpenter back in 2003 and ended up going back to school to become a SCI researcher, as well as an advocate for curative therapies. We have an interesting conversation about early physical therapy, the role of belief and competition with yourself and how that aids recovery. We also discuss Dan’s research and interest in mitigating early damage at the injury site, acute versus chronic injury strategies, the Wisconsin bill to fund SCI research, and what sustains advocacy passion in the long run. More info here: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-77.html

Today's conversation is a rebroadcast of our interview with Samuel Stupp back in 2022. We thought it was a good time to revisit this conversation, given Dr. Stupp’s most recent publication, which you can learn more about below in the summary review done by U2FP’s science writer, Sam Maddox. More info and research links here: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-76.html As always, please share your thoughts with us via email at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Today’s episode revisits important elements and loose ends of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) that didn’t fit neatly into the arc of our first three conversations on this topic. We’re calling this installment the ‘Junk Drawer’ - not because we consider these loose ends to be junk, but because they represent the multi-directional potential of stimulation’s promise that are on the horizon. This includes strategies we haven't fully broached such as combination therapies and clinical trials that are in the works - including one that U2FP helped design and coordinated funding for - as well as well as other strategies such as deep brain stimulation and intra-spinal stimulation. As always, please share your thoughts with us via email at [email protected]. Thanks for listening! Bio Sam Maddox (of Los Angeles, California) is former Knowledge Manager and spinal cord injury research writer for the Reeve Foundation. He is the author of several books related to chronic health and paralysis, including four editions of the Paralysis Resource Guide, published by the Reeve Foundation. In 1992 Maddox wrote the first comprehensive history of spinal cord injury research, The Quest for Cure: Restoring Function After Spinal Cord Injury. He wrote and published the widely acclaimed resource book Spinal Network, and is founder of New Mobility magazine. Maddox was a panel member on The Consortium for Spinal Cord Medicine, which develops and disseminates evidence-based clinical practice guidelines to professionals and consumers. He is currently writing and producing books as a resource for the newly injured: SCI: First 90 Days. He has been a reporter for many magazines, including Time, Money and People. Maddox is a graduate of the University of Colorado, where he taught in the School of Journalism.

Today we talk with Bill Murphy, a bioengineer out of the University of Wisconsin Madison. We recently met Dr. Murphy when he came to the Wisconsin Capitol in support of our $3M SCI Research Grant bill back in January. Bill’s team has been working on developing biomaterials to improve the body’s ability to receive and utilize Chondroitinase ABC (ChABC). ChABC is an enzyme that holds lots of promise for jump starting axon regeneration, a key element for repairing the damaged spinal cord. But ChABC is notoriously unstable, having a short shelf life once it’s formulated as well as degrading quickly after it enters the body. Jason and Matthew talk with Dr. Murphy about the specifics of his research strategy to improve the use of ChABC, and how it could be used in combination with other therapeutic interventions. We also discuss his support of our bill and his reflection on what it was like to walk through and meet legislators with us as we advocated for our bill to fund SCI research in Wisconsin. As always, please share your thoughts with us via email at [email protected]. Thanks for listening! Guest Bio Bill Murphy is the Harvey D. Spangler Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Orthopedics & Rehabilitation at the University of Wisconsin. His research group has developed new classes of biomimetic materials inspired by nature. They have used their materials to create new medical devices, human cells, and human tissues. He has over 200 publications, filed over 60 patents and co-founded 4 start-up companies based on those inventions. He also serves as Founding Director of the Forward BIO Institute, which catalyzes innovation in research, entrepreneurship and training, and pushes groundbreaking technologies out of academia and into the private sector. More info and resources: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-74.html

This is the third and final (for now) installment of our 101 tour of spinal stimulation. We're joined again by Sam Maddox, U2FP's Scientific Advisory Board Director and veteran science journalist. Today, we discuss the commercialization of spinal stim, detailing the path that these therapies will need to traverse to arrive at the market. We talk about how labs and businesses are organized and review some of the challenges they face, including obtaining FDA approval, getting funded, and organizing clinical trials and recruiting participants. Even after those hurdles are cleared and a therapy is ready to go to market, we speculate about the role clinical buy-in will play. Finally, a quick shout out to you, our listeners for engaging with us during this series. We’ve had a lot of feedback and intend to address many of your questions and comments on the air soon. You can still reach out and tell us what you think at [email protected]. For more resources, including guest bios, related scientific studies and past conversations we've had with researchers studying spinal stimulation, go here: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-73.html