Spinal Cord Injury Fact Sheet

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Spinal Cord Injury

Embryonic stem cells can mature into all cells of the nervous system. These could be used to directly treat some diseases or could be useful for studying the origins of disease and designing new therapies. Learn more about this image by clicking on it or see more of CIRM's nervous system images on our Flickr Photostream.

CIRM funds a variety of research projects focused on finding a treatment for people with spinal cord injury. These projects range from basic work understanding how nerve cells are damaged in these injuries to projects trying move therapies into clinical trials.

If you want to learn more about CIRM funding decisions or make a comment directly to our board, join us at a public meeting. You can find agendas for upcoming public meetings on our meetings page.

Learn more about stem cell research:
Stem Cell Basics Primer | Stem Cell Videos | What We Fund

Find clinical trials:
CIRM does not track stem cell clinical trials. If you or a family member is interested in participating in a clinical trial, please see the national trial database to find a trial near you: clinicaltrials.gov

Description

In 2010, Geron began the first clinical trial in the world using human embryonic stem cells, in this case as a possible therapy for spinal cord injury. The embryonic stem cells used in the Geron trial have been manipulated to become precursors to certain types of nerve cells and are being tested as a potential therapy for spinal cord injury. Geron has since terminated that trial for financial reasons, although the enrolled patients showed no adverse side effects from the cells. 

The Geron trial was testing a treatment for spinal cord injury based on findings by a CIRM-funded team of researchers from the University of California, Irvine, led by Dr Hans Keirstead, though the work was done prior to CIRM funding.

In 2005, Keirstead and his colleagues showed that they could make paralyzed rats move again by injecting early-stage oligodendrocyte cells that had been derived from human embryonic stem cells into the spinal cord within seven days of injury. Oligodendrocytes are the cells that produce myelin, the insulation for nerve cells that carry electrical nerve signals in the spinal cord. In addition to producing myelin, these cells release compounds that protect damaged nerves at the site of a recent spinal cord injury. The early Keirstead research indicated that the oilgodedrocyte progenitors appeared to preserve message-carrying nerves that would otherwise die following injury.

CIRM is funding additional research into therapies for spinal cord injury, including more than $4 million to the University of California, Irvine. Those scientists are looking at the effect of immunosuppressant drugs on stem cells – their proliferation, gene expression and differentiation – as well as studying iPS cells and tissue-specific neural stem cells and their role in spinal cord repair.

UC San Diego researchers are getting a similar amount of CIRM funding to study how human embryonic stem cell implants may be used in the treatment of spinal ischemic paraplegia, and to better understand how to prevent the immune system from rejecting transplanted cells.

CIRM is funding additional projects looking at the spinal cord at the UCLA and the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute. According to CIRM President, Professor Alan Trounson, the Agency’s almost $38 million commitment (as of May 2011) to help develop a stem cell cure for spinal cord injury “is a high priority”.

 

Progress and Promise toward a stem cell-based therapy for spinal cord injury

CIRM Grants Targeting Spinal Cord Injury

CIRM Spinal Cord Injury Videos

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