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Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation expresses appreciation to Congressional co-sponsors for passing first legislation specific to the paralysis community

SHORT HILLS, N.J., March 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, the national, non-profit organization dedicated to finding cures and treatments for spinal cord injuries and improving the lives of people living with paralysis, applauds President Obama for signing the Omnibus Public Lands Bill. Passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on March 25 and the U.S. Senate on January 15, Title XIV of the Bill contains the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act. The Act was named for the late Christopher Reeve and his wife Dana, whose courage and grace in the face of adversity, coupled with their extraordinary activism, were an inspiration to millions around the world...

GAINESVILLE, Fla., March 23 (UPI) -- U.S. medical engineers say computerized electrical stimulation might be used to help people regain more precise control of paralyzed limbs.

Although research is still in preliminary stages, University of Florida engineers said computer-adapted electrical stimulation might one day help people who suffer paralysis from strokes or spinal cord injuries...

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwire) -- 03/20/09 -- On March 21st 1985, international medal-winning athlete and Olympian Rick Hansen and his team, left Oakridge Centre in Vancouver to raise awareness of the potential of people with disabilities, and to fulfill his dream of an accessible and inclusive world. Two years later, against all odds, he arrived home after pushing his wheelchair through 34 countries across four continents. Hansen inspired and galvanized a nation, changed perceptions about people with a disability and set the course for improving lives of people with spinal cord injury (SCI) and the search for a cure. He kept going on his unwavering belief that if you dare to dream, anything is possible...

Washington, March 20 (ANI): Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have announced the creation of transplantable living nerve tissue that encourages and guides regeneration in an animal model.

Dr. Douglas H. Smith, a professor in the Department of Neurosurgery and Director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at Penn, says that he and his colleagues have successfully grown, transplanted, and integrated axon bundles...

New Zealand doctors are on the verge of getting approval for cutting-edge surgery that could help the paralysed feel or even walk again.
 
The experimental procedure, which has only been attempted in a few countries, uses the patient's own stem cells to try to repair the severed spinal chord...

TEMPERANCE, MI -- Cortney Hoffman is on the road to recovery.  Nearly seven years ago the then 16-year-old rolled from Temperance her car, crushing her spine and becoming paralyzed from the shoulders down.  Now, twice a week in two-hour increments she works out with trainers at the YMCA.

“We work out in the chapel so we don't have to go to church on Sundays,” Hoffman laughs.

Her spirits are high and she believes she will someday...

ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2009) — DaVinci Biosciences, in collaboration with Luis Vernaza Hospital in Ecuador, have announced the publication of study results demonstrating the safety and feasibility of its acute and chronic spinal cord injury treatment platform in Cell Transplantation, a peer-reviewed journal focused on regenerative medicine. The study demonstrates that administering adult autologous bone marrow derived stem cells via multiple routes is feasible, safe, and most importantly, improves the quality of life for both acute and chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) patients.
 
The study documents eight patients (four acute and four chronic) who were administered autologous bone marrow derived stem cells using a multiple route delivery technique. A two-year follow-up was performed on all the patients in the study who received the treatment...

Geron's(GERN Quote - Cramer on GERN - Stock Picks) upcoming and widely publicized stem cell trial involving patients with spinal cord injuries was criticized as risky and clinically dubious because the entire rationale for the study is "based on a single experiment in eight rats."

More on GERN M&A Flurry Can't Lift MarketStock Search: Merck and Shering Plough Fail To Spark The MarketsStock Wrap: The Real Story March 93 Stocks I Saw on TVBiotech Stock Mailbag: Geron GambitGeron's Stem-Cell Research Hype Soaks InvestorsGeron's a Slow-Go, Not a No-GoU.S. Steel, American Express Gird StocksFour Must-See Charts of the Day: Small-Cap Stocks to WatchCAT Can't Scratch Indices Market Activity Aastrom Biosciences Incorporated| ASTM UPThe negative view of Geron's research effort came from a spinal surgeon and stem cell researcher during a conference call for institutional investors held Monday by Summer Street Research Partners, an independent health care research firm...