Our 30th anniversary year has been one of the most exciting ever in our mission to cure spinal cord injury (SCI). While progress towards a cure sometimes seems slow as is often the case with medical research, especially when done properly, major milestones on that journey were achieved this year.
Project Spark’s first neurostimulation clinical trial, eWALK1 successfully completed treatments of all 50 volunteers. Congratulations to the team of scientists at NeuRA and especially to the volunteers who gave up 12 weeks of their time to participate. This is the world’s first rigorous gold standard test of neurostimulation and a major milestone towards plans to develop first therapies for Australians with SCI. We eagerly anticipate the results, due for release in the second half of 2025.
Pleasingly, another major milestone was achieved with the expansion of Project Spark into the community. Two additional neurostimulation clinical trials, Get a Grip and eWALK2, commenced and five new sites opened (Sydney, Canberra, NZ and Adelaide) bringing the total number of participants treated under Project Spark so far to 80. Setting up a new trial site involves all sorts of logistical arrangements, as well as training, equipment purchases, fundraising and recruitment drives. A huge thank you to our partners at Spinal Cord Injuries Australia and NeuroMoves for their hard work helping to make this happen.
*3 trial sites in Sydney, Perth site to launch early 2025 along with additional Australian sites
Professor Marc Ruitenberg at UQ, a world leader in the inflammatory response after SCI (another promising avenue to treat SCI), published his paper about the immune system’s initial response to injury. Marc and his team give unprecedented insight into how SCI impacts immunity (and not just feeling and function). The next stage of the research will look for ways to counteract this so that newly injured people suffer fewer infectious complications, which they are at higher risk of.
SpinalCure rolled out its early to mid-career fellowship program and after reviewing many competitive applications, our Scientific Panel decided on two exceptional recipients each working on important aspects of the cure puzzle. Stay tuned to hear about these exciting post doctorates and their work in the new year.
The 2024 Annual David Prast Award, which is granted in partnership with SCIA, was given to Felicity Bermingham, a NeuroMove’s exercise physiologist. This allowed her to travel across North America learning some of the very latest rehabilitation techniques for SCI.
We also organised our first Australian SCI Cure Summit, hosted over two days at NeuRA. This summit brought SpinalCure supported cure focused scientists together to talk about their research findings and discuss collaboration. Some interesting ideas came out of the Summit and I can’t wait to share them with you in the new year once they are more developed.
IN TERMS OF WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2025:
We will continue to work with the NeuRA and NeuroMoves teams to open more Project Spark trial sites across Australia providing more people an opportunity to try neurostimulation. Excitingly, Perth, Sargood on Collaroy, two country NSW and additional Sydney sites are scheduled to open;
our support for Prof Ruitenberg and his team will continue as they expand our knowledge and treatment options for acute injuries; and
we are in the planning stages of several other truly exciting areas of research, both clinical and basic, which I can’t wait to tell you about over the coming year.
With strong, albeit modest cure foundations in place, we are turning our minds to the future of SCI cure research in Australia and we are developing Australia’s first Roadmap to a Cure in consultation with stakeholders. If we can work together around a shared vision and agreed set of priorities we can accelerate the research and help facilitate the pathway to first approved treatments. The Roadmap will launch in 2025.
All of the progress that we’ve made this year simply would not have been possible without the support of our donors, partners, researchers, ambassadors, volunteers, trial participants, their families and each and every one of you who make up our SpinalCure community.
Something that I find particularly motivating are the many positive stories coming from Project Spark participants and the genuine collaborative effort by community, researcher, advocate, clinician and funder. I would like to thank the Neilson Foundation, CatWalk NZ, Hearts & Minds, Senator Linda Reynolds, Caroline Farrell as well as all our other donors and supporters. A huge thank you to you all.
On behalf of the SpinalCure team, I wish you a happy and safe festive season and look forward to sharing more exciting updates with you in 2025.
Kathryn Borkovic – CEO, SpinalCure Australia