Spinal Cord Injury Fact Sheet

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

Stem cell research for spinal cord injury

About 250,000 people in the U.S. live with spinal cord injuries. Half of those are quadriplegic, with the paralysis impacting all four limbs to some extent. For those individuals the lifetime cost of managing their condition is estimated to be between $2 million and $3 million.

Spinal cord injury became the first condition targeted in a human clinical trial using cells made from embryonic stem cells. That trial, begun by Geron in 2010 and based on the findings of a team CIRM currently funds, was later cancelled by Geron for financial reasons. By the time of the cancellation five patients around the country had been enrolled in the study, including two at Stanford, who entered the trial during a period when CIRM funded Geron. Those patients continue to be followed to learn as much as possible about this approach.

California’s stem cell agency retains many grants for research to move potential spinal cord injury therapies forward (the full list is below). Much of this work focuses on trying to determine which type of nerve cell is the best one to transplant, and deciding which type of stem cell is the best starting point for making those cells. Other research is trying to see if these transplanted cells become part of the existing nerve system, helping create new pathways that can transmit nerve signals to muscles. The researchers are also looking at ways to try and improve the ability of these transplanted cells to become part of the nerve system.

One obstacle that some teams are trying to overcome is the tendency of the scar at the site of injury to block the growth of these transplanted cells. One group is trying to overcome that by combining stem cells with synthetic scaffolds that can be placed at the site of injury, to help the cells bridge the scar and restore signals. In animal models this combination has resulted in an increase in mobility compared to stem cell grafts alone.

Disease team awards

Stem Cells Inc.

This research team plans to lay the groundwork for the first clinical trial using stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries in the neck. The team is already using stem cells to treat injuries in the back and plan to use these same cell lines - and conduct the added tests needed to get FDA approval - to begin testing patients with neck injuries. They are seeking approval to treat both recently injured patients and people who have had their paralysis for months or years.

Read about the team's progress

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

CIRM Grants Targeting Spinal Cord Injury

Researcher name	Institution	Grant Title	Funding
Nobuko Uchida	StemCells, Inc.	Neural stem cell transplantation for chronic cervical spinal cord injury	$20,000,000
Martin Marsala	University of California, San Diego	Induction of immune tolerance after spinal grafting of human ES-derived neural precursors	$1,387,800
leif Havton	University of California, Irvine	Repair of Conus Medullaris/Cauda Equina Injury using Human ES Cell-Derived Motor Neurons	$1,614,441
Aileen Anderson	University of California, Irvine	Role of the microenvironment in human iPS and NSC fate and tumorigenesis	$1,284,921
Martin Marsala	University of California, San Diego	Spinal ischemic paraplegia: modulation by human embryonic stem cell implant	$2,445,716
Brian Cummings	University of California, Irvine	The Immunological Niche: Effect of immunosuppressant drugs on stem cell proliferation, gene expression, and differentiation in a model of spinal cord injury.	$619,223
Ziwei Huang	Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute	New Chemokine-Derived Therapeutics Targeting Stem Cell Migration	$759,000
Mark Tuszynski	University of California, San Diego	Functional Neural Relay Formation by Human Neural Stem Cell Grafting in Spinal Cord Injury	$4,699,569
Arnold Kriegstein	University of California, San Francisco	Human ES cell-derived MGE inhibitory interneuron transplantation for spinal cord injury	$1,623,251
Jane Lebkowski	Geron Corporation	Evaluation of Safety and Preliminary Efficacy of Escalating Doses of GRNOPC1 in Subacute Spinal Cord Injury	$24,846,856
			Total: $59,280,777.00