The Live Wire

Spinal Research

Spinal Research is the UK’s leading charity dedicated to funding medical research around the world to develop reliable treatments for paralysis caused by a broken back or neck.

Every year around 1,000 people in the UK and Ireland are paralysed following an injury to their spinal cord. Spinal Research raises money to fund research into clinical treatments as well as vital basic science research. Thanks to such pioneering research, paralysis can now be treated in the laboratory. We are on the brink of applying therapies that will restore movement and feeling, transforming the lives of people living with paralysis.

Repairing a damaged spinal cord is one of the most complex challenges that medical science has ever faced. In the past 15 years, scientists have made major breakthroughs in understanding how to encourage damaged neurons to regenerate. Spinal Research has played a fundamental role in developing several of these experimental treatments.

Our Clinical Initiative, set up 8 years ago, aims to drive basic research into the clinic. Now entering its third stage, it strategically focuses on translational medicine for chronic injury. The next stage of our Clinical Initiative, the demanding process of taking experimental proof of concept to the bedside - the so-called translational science – will be our most expensive yet and funds are urgently needed to support this crucial research.

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