Training Program on Innovative Approaches to Spinal Cord Injury

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition that affects about 250,000 Americans with 17,700 new cases annually costing upwards of $2 million each. There is very little that can be done to treat these patients that improves their prospects for even partial recovery or the amelioration of symptoms that negatively impact their quality of life. SCI research continues to advance, but bolder and more innovative breakthroughs are needed, if the efforts are to translate into therapies that improve symptoms, alleviate pain, and restore functionality. As highlighted by the NIH-hosted SCI-2020 meeting, a new generation of SCI researchers is desperately needed, one that is thoroughly educated in all of the needed background and history of the field while also equipped to bring new technologies and insights into the field through strong collaborative interactions with scientists from other fields. Drexel University College of Medicine is home to the Marion Murray Spinal Cord Research Center, which has over three decades of history advancing the SCI field while simultaneously educating and training doctoral students to take the field forward. Within the Center is the Drexel SCI Training Program, which consists of well-funded and vibrant investigators who study SCI from many different perspectives, and mentor trainees in many different approaches. These include engineering, electrophysiology, cell transplantation, rehabilitation and others. The center has extensive multidisciplinary collaborations with Drexel investigators from other fields, many of whom are involved in the SCI Training Program. The Center is based within the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, with the students affiliated with the Neuroscience Graduate Program. SCI students are exposed to a multitude of training experiences, including but not limited to what the Neuroscience Graduate Program offers, with flexibility that welcomes students from other graduate programs to transfer into the program in order to conduct SCI-relevant research. The program has existed for over thirty years, with consistent success of the students securing F31 funding to fund their senior years, and then achieving success in their careers after completing the program. T32 funding for the program will enable expansion of the research and the number of trainees, thus improving the prospects of SCI patients, for whom treatments have remained elusive for too long.