An international group of scientists has shown that a drug candidate designed by scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) significantly increases exercise endurance in mice.
“The animals actually get muscles like an athlete who has been training,” said Professor Thomas Burris. “The pattern of gene expression after treatment with SR9009 is that of an oxidative-type muscle— again, just like an athlete.”
The best assisted exercise and FES programs can only hope to exercise a small percentage of the muscles of someone with a spinal cord injury so a drug such as his could be enormously beneficial to the health of paraplegics and tetraplegics.
The study was published July 14, 2013, by the journal Nature Medicine.