MESSAGE FROM THE SCIENTIFIC LEADERSHIP

The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, a Center of Excellence at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, continues to make important discoveries in the areas of brain and spinal cord injury. Our multidisciplinary program in the areas of discovery, translational and clinical neuroscience research are directed to protecting and repairing the nervous system after injury. We sincerely thank all our friends, volunteers, and the SCI community for supporting our research mission to seek fundamental knowledge about brain and SCI and use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurotrauma and other neurological diseases.

In the area of neuroprotection, our multicenter trial in therapeutic hypothermia is continuing to recruit spinal cord acutely injured subjects with the goal of changing medicine. Our drug discovery programs are developing new drugs to reduce inflammation and promote successful axonal regeneration. Our therapeutic translational pipeline is helping to advance NIH and DOD funded programs which are changing the way we improve function and quality of life in people living with spinal cord injury and other types of injuries.

In the area of repairing the nervous system, current research is evaluating the beneficial effects of human Schwann cell-derived extracellular vesicles as a novel approach to delivering important proteins and genetic materials that our scientists feel will have a significant impact on treating a variety of neurological disorders.

The Christine E. Lynn Rehabilitation Center is allowing our clinical investigators to more efficiently work with several clinical programs to recruit new subjects for our research initiatives. We are evaluating rehabilitation approaches to improve locomotor function, upper extremity movement and quality of life issues including neuropathic pain, spasticity, obesity and cardiovascular disease. Our multidisciplinary scientific community is fortunate to work in two state-of-the-art facilities where new discoveries in the Lois Pope LIFE Center can be successfully translated to the Lynn Center where everyday advances are being made to improve medical care.

To retrain the nervous system after injury, neuroscientists are working closely with engineers to develop novel strategies for stimulating residual brain circuits to takeover function that is lost after spinal cord injury. New FDA approved trials including peripheral nerve transfers and deep brain stimulation are directed to providing motor function on chronically injured individuals. The Miami Project was also chosen as the 2nd site in the U.S. to participate in the Neuralink investigational medical device trial to evaluate safety and functionality of their brain computer interface for enabling SCI and ALS subjects to control external devices with their thoughts.

These are exciting times for The Miami Project as we translate neurotrauma discoveries to other neurological disorders including neurodegenerative diseases such ALS, MS, Parkinson, and Alzheimer’s disease. We sincerely appreciate the continued support of our friends and colleagues for our programs focusing on novel strategies to improve function and quality of life in individuals living with paralysis and other neurological disorders.

Barth A. Green, M.D., F.A.C.S. – Co-Founder
W. Dalton Dietrich, Ph.D. – Scientific Director
Allan D. Levi, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.S. – Clinical Director