At the beginning of this year, we were quite shocked when the proposed budget appeared without this important program listed. We reached out to those of you in our SCI, research and clinical communities, and you all responded...

This is the second in a series of articles with background and context for the 2021 Unite 2 Fight Paralysis Annual Science and Advocacy Symposium. This two-day event tells you what you need to know about the science to repair the injured spinal cord. Today, we'll look at rejuvenation, which you might think of as the rousing of nerve cells that are still alive and home where they should be, but maybe asleep, and not functioning in harmony with spinal cord nerve circuitry. In the simplest terms, how might these cells be brought back online?

Jason and Matthew talk with Megan Detloff (SCI researcher at Drexel College of Medicine) and Bethany Kondiles (SCI researcher at ICORD). They talk about the evolution of the International Online SCI Research Seminar (IOSCIRS) in response to the pandemic and as a forum for SCI researchers to stay abreast of one another's work. But they have also begun to discuss the value of the seminar for the lay audience of people living with SCI. We talk through this development and both the challenges and opportunities to use this platform as a way to connect researchers and people living with SCI.

This is the first of three articles with background and context for the 2021 Symposium, a look at who’s presenting what, and why. Some nerve cells in the damage zone die right away, and they’re gone. Nearby, others are in peril, and many succumb hours and days later as the injury site becomes toxic to cells. What if we were to REPLACE lost cells or rebuild the mangled cord structure to encourage recovery? In this article, we will explore the REPLACE part of the 2021 Symposium agenda. In subsequent posts, we will look at the other Rs, regeneration and rejuvenation.