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U2FP's Blog > Keeping you current on the movement to cure paralysis
Sep 16, 2024

Your Lens - U2FP's Symposium

Matthew Rodreick


We’re just two weeks away from U2FP’s 19th Annual Science & Advocacy Symposium and I wanted to encourage you to join us (register now). Whether you’re a person with an SCI, a family member or caretaker to someone with this injury, a grad student studying SCI, a researcher, clinician, activity based therapist, biotech representative, government regulator or NGO - your presence at this meeting is important to us.

 

Left panel: Anders Asp and Kate Fernandez, grad students from the Mayo Clinic, were poster presenters and engaged participants at last year’s symposium. Right panel: Mackenzie Wann, Wisconsin SCI advocate (right) with her friend Kayla Gerek (left).


We have a higher percentage of individuals with a spinal cord injury attend our meeting than any other scientific conference (30-40% the last few years). And we are seeing growing numbers of sharp, engaged grad students and postdocs enlivening our presentations and panel discussions with their insightful and provocative questions. The networking opportunities and information sharing among stakeholders are qualitatively different than elsewhere. That’s because we’re all in the same room, sharing the same conversation, participating in the same Q&A’s. 

 

Jill Wecht, EdD (left), Jacob Goldsmith, MS, PhD (center), and Noam Y. Harel, MD, PhD (right) enjoy the end of day one at last year’s symposium in Minneapolis.


Dr. Noam Harel (pictured above) had this to say about last year’s symposium: “U2FP's aims pay off - I engaged more with other stakeholders than I have at any other conference.”

Where else are you going to get this kind of diversity of perspective? During one of last year’s panels, researcher Murray Blackmore’s question to a panel on emerging SCI technologies was asked alongside that of a father to a newly injured son. This is the only place I know of that you get that kind of range; that mix of complex structural challenges alongside the day-to-day realities shared by those who live with this injury. The sense of community and collaboration is simply unmatched.
 


Which is why you need to join us. We need your particular perspective. Maybe you are a person with lived experience in a rural area with few of the available resources that would speed your recovery (eg, a nearby research hospital or Activity-Based Therapy center). Or maybe you’re a grad student who has yet to meet an individual with a SCI - you need to be in this room so you can incorporate the SCI community’s point of view as you move forward in your work. 

Whoever you are - SCI individual, family member, clinician, grad student, researcher, biotech rep., etc - your particular challenges need to be heard, and you need to hear the other points of view that will be in this room.

Please join us in Atlanta. Your presence will make the conversation richer. And I guarantee you’ll leave with a renewed sense of purpose and energy to engage in this difficult and important work: accelerating the development of treatments after SCI.

Join us,
 

PS - Don’t forget: for SCI Awareness Month, an anonymous donor with an SCI has offered to match all donations to U2FP - up to $100,000! We've already raised over $30,000 - help keep our momentum going by making a donation today. Donate Now