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Wednesday, August 27, 1997

Medical schools announce spinal cord regeneration research effort

By MICHELLE KOIDIN / Associated Press Writer

HOUSTON (AP) -- Three medical schools joined hands Tuesday in an effort to develop better spinal cord regeneration techniques.

The three -- University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and Baylor College of Medicine -- unveiled their joint research venture, to be headquartered at The Institute for Rehabilitation & Research.

"We"re at an early stage of work in spinal cord regeneration. This is going to get us in the gate in a big way," said Dr. Guy Clifton, neurosurgery chairman at UT"s Health Science Center.

The TIRR consortium plans to establish a $1 million fund to help pay for research, through an eventual $25 million endowment, and an international symposium Nov. 7, said Howard Wolf, the TIRR Foundation"s chairman.

So far, $400,000 in donations have been raised.

Wolf says spinal cord injury treatments will be to the Texas Medical Center in the first half of the next century what open heart surgery was in the second half of this century.

While many tissues of the body, such as bone, skin and liver can repair and heal when injured, the spinal cord and brain cannot.

The consortium"s mission would be to look at better ways to improve the outcome of a spinal injury, for instance treating spinal injuries more quickly with drugs, or injecting DNA to improve response of the injured area of the body.

The consortium hopes to raise enough money for a $25 million to be named for Emily Conner, 20, a St. Thomas University student who was paralyzed in a diving accident a year ago.

Clifton could not say whether the research would mean that Ms. Conner and others like her someday could walk again.

"I think we"ve got to be real careful here. My own concern is that we create more hope than we ought to," he said. "Everybody wants to get out of the wheelchair, and I understand that, but this is going to take some time."

He estimated that researchers would need about 10 years to take the techniques through the laboratory and conduct a clinical trial.

"The first leap to where you get any sort of functional improvement is going to be the big one," Clifton said. "Regaining one muscle which you didn"t have can have a huge impact on daily life for someone with spinal cord injury."H Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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