Episode 94

Your Voice Here (Episode 94)

Guests: Mackenzie Wann, Mike Burris, Regina Bly, David McMillan, Melissa Miller, Scott Chesney, John Chernesky, Jason Biundo, Jesus Centeno, Erin Clark, Skye Carlson, Paul Erway, Leanne Reeves, Marco Baptista

Today's episode is a brief collection of micro-interviews that we conducted during our 2023 Science & Advocacy Symposium here in Minneapolis. During this two day event our podcast producer Julie and my co-host Jason set up a podcast booth and interviewed whoever wanted to come and talk about the symposium, talk about themselves, and talk about their position relative to the big picture. We called it: "Your Voice Here." Some are scientists, some are people who represent organizations, some are from companies, and most are folks with a SCI. I hope it gives you a little flavor of our symposium and what some attendees were thinking about over the course of those two days.

Every year, U2FP puts on an annual science and advocacy symposium. It's a two day event where we bring together people from the SCI community, researchers, clinicians, industry representatives, and funders in an effort to educate our community about the science of curative therapies. We also hope it provides a better understanding of the scientific enterprise. But it’s also a conference to educate folks in the scientific community by hearing directly from individuals who live with a spinal cord injury. The overarching questions are: What are we each thinking about this whole enterprise? What are our perceptions and blind spots? And what are we hoping it will deliver to us in terms of restorative therapies? Finally, and most importantly, how can we – the SCI community - engage more effectively in advocating for restored function?

As always, please share your thoughts with us via email at curecast@u2fp.org. Thanks for listening!