Jen Dulin, PhD
Associate Professor, Neurobiology, Texas A&M University
Abstract
Spinal Cord Injury Research Projects Analysis: Where is the money going?
Jennifer Dulin, Texas A&M University
Katie Vo, Texas A&M University
Matthew Rodreick, Unite2Fight Paralysis
Chris Barr, Unite2Fight Paralysis
Marco Soriani, Unite2Fight Paralysis
Peter Nowell, Unite2Fight Paralysis
Ian Burkhart, Unite2Fight Paralysis
The problem: Federal and private funding agencies spend millions of dollars on spinal cord injury research each year, but there is limited public access to knowledge about the types of projects that are being funded. Publicly available data can be difficult to search and comprehend, especially for laypersons. Moreover, privately-funded research projects may not be publicly available. Members of the SCI community, SCI researchers, clinicians and industry representatives alike would benefit from an open knowledge base to understand how SCI research funding is distributed.
The plan: We seek to take the first step toward developing such a base by conducting and publishing a systematic analysis of funded projects in SCI research. Our team has previously collaborated together to perform a systematic analysis of SCI clinical trials (Dietz et al., 2022). The goal of the current project is to create a new, publicly accessible resource that will be useful to scientists, clinicians, funding agencies, individuals with SCI, and other stakeholders. We plan to perform a systematic analysis of funded projects in order to draw conclusions about the focus (e.g., basic or clinical), mechanisms (e.g., pilot grants or program grants), and themes of funded projects focusing on SCI research in the last 10 years. We will analyze the types of research that is being funded and the areas of growth.
The results: We envision that this effort will lead to the development of a living “SCI research map” with a searchable interface so that researchers and community members can identify funded projects near them for collaboration.
Funding Sources: NIH R01NS116404 (J. Dulin)
Bio
Jen Dulin joined the field of spinal cord injury (SCI) research in 2008, when she began her graduate studies at UT Health Science Center in Houston with Dr. Raymond Grill. Her postdoctoral work at the University of California in San Diego with Dr. Mark Tuszynski focused on neural regeneration after spinal cord injury. She became a faculty member at Texas A&M University in 2017. The central goal of the Dulin lab’s research is refining approaches for cell transplantation with the aim of restoring hand and leg function after SCI. Ongoing work in the lab is studying how enriching cell grafts for key types of neurons and combining cell transplantation with rehabilitation, can enhance functional outcomes. Her lab published a systematic review article about SCI clinical trials in 2022, in collaboration with U2FP. They are now working together on a project to evaluate SCI research funding.
