We would like to say a heartfelt 'thank you' to Ken Foster and Anthony Vowels at Front Design - graphic design studio in Sydney for designing and setting our annual report again this year. They have been generously donating their time and expertise to create our annual report for many years making the whole process stress free.

14 May 2012
A clinical trial is underway by the US based, Japanese owned firm Asubio for their SUN13837 molecule. This trial is for acute (new) cervical injuries. They are hoping for an incredible 2-level improvement in quadriplegic patients. The difference this would make is enormous. For example, instead of basic weak bicep only arm movement, a C5 quadriplegic might get full arm and hand function.
Read more...

25 April 2012
"If successful we anticipate these scaffolds will not just be applicable to peripheral nerve injury, but could also be developed for other types of nerve damage too. The technique of laser direct writing may ultimately allow production of scaffolds that could help in the treatment of spinal cord injury."
Lead author, Dr. Frederik Claeyssens. Read more...

24 April 2012
University of Western Australia researchers are using human bone marrow stem cells to promote an endogenous host response after spinal cord injury, by isolating stromal cells found in a patient’s own bone marrow and transplanting them back into the injury site in animal models. Read more...

13 May 2012 InVivo Therapeutics have had promising results using on bipolymer scaffolding to treat spinal cord injury in animal models (See published results). (March 2012: interview with InVivo CEO). Final FDA approval is still required. Read more

3 April 2012
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, Germany, have broken new ground by reprogramming skin cells from mice into neurons without regressing the cells through a pluripotent stage. The skin cells were reprogrammed directly into multipotent neuronal stem cells - that is, into cells which could only turn into new neurons. This procedure avoids the significant risk that pluripotent stem cells, which can grow into any type of tissue, may accidentally form tumors rather than the desired replacement tissue. read more...

2 April 2011
Canadian researchers have developed a new technique for growing stem cells that may make possible cost-effective, large-scale stem cell manufacturing and research.

Although stem cells are widely used for the testing of new drugs, researchers have always faced difficulties manufacturing enough viable cells from a culture. Read more