Kent C. New, MD, PhD, FAANS
Director, Neurosurgery Research, Ascension St. Vincent’s Medical Center
Abstract
Overcoming Obstacles
In 1995, Christopher Reeve suffered a high cervical spinal cord injury (SCI). He subsequently became the leading advocate for the development of treatments for those with SCIs. He raised more money and shone a brighter light on the need for treatments than anyone before him. Mr. Reeve became so integral to the movement to treat SCIs that the American Paralysis Association adopted his name in 1999.
Unfortunately, Mr. Reeve died secondary to complications of his injury in 2004, less than 10 years post-injury and at the age of only 52. His sad passing at such a young age should have highlighted even more the need for treatments for SCI. Yet here we are, nearly 30 years since Mr. Reeve’s injury with no widely effective treatments available to the SCI community. During this time another roughly 7 million people have suffered spinal cord injuries worldwide, and more than 15 million people are currently living with SCI.
Why is it taking so long to develop treatments and make them widely available? The answer is directly related to the complexity of the injuries and the complexity of the medical research environment that seeks to treat them. This presentation will review the obstacles in the path of developing treatments and some ways we might seek to overcome them.
Bio
Dr. Kent New, from Alexandria, Virginia, obtained a B.A. in Chemistry at the University of Virginia in 1989. He entered an M.D./Ph.D. program at Georgetown University, earning his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology. In 1998, Dr. New began residency training in Neurosurgery at Duke University where he also completed a funded research fellowship in tumor immunology.
From 2005-08, Dr. New worked at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville specializing in brain tumor research and clinical work. In 2008, Dr. New moved to Ascension St Vincent’s Southside hospital where he pursued private practice until suffering a C6 spinal cord injury in a motor vehicle accident in late 2014.
Dr. New currently oversees clinical research at St Vincent’s neurosurgery, serves on the board of directors for the Brain Tumor Network and a retirement community, and recently joined ASIA’s Spinal Cord Outcomes Partnership Endeavor (SCOPE) and the expert committee for scitrialfinder.net to broaden his involvement in the SCI community.
