U2FP CureCast

Today we are talking to Mason Branstrator in the first of a two-part series on supporting general wellness while living with a Spinal Cord Injury. Quinn Brett, U2FP’s Development and fellow wellness pursuer is joining me for the discussion. Mason Branstrator is a dynamic and influential personality in the world of Spinal Cord Injury and his mission is to improve life for our community in any way that he can. Mason’s social media presence is one platform that he uses to accomplish this goal... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-131.html

Today, we’re joined by Dr. Evan Joiner from Columbia University for a truly fascinating conversation about spinal cord stimulation—but we start somewhere completely unexpected. Before becoming a neurosurgeon, Evan actually began his career as a soap opera actor. Yep, you heard that right. We dive into how that unlikely path led him into medicine, and ultimately, to neurosurgery. Along the way... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-130.html

Today we are talking with Dr. Chase Cornelison, an Assistant Professor in the department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Chase brings his unique perspective as a chemical and biomolecular engineer to the problem of spinal cord injury. The Cornelison lab investigates how... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-129.html

Today we are having a conversation with Alexander “Sasha” Rabchevsky. Sasha is many things: a professor, a researcher, a paraplegic, and a U2FP board member. He is also one of the old guard of research advocates. And he is frustrated... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-128.html

Today we are talking to Drs. Dimitry Sayenko and Adam Thrasher about their SCI humanitarian project in Tanzania called “Peak to Peak.” Dimitry is an MD, PhD and an associate professor in Neuromodulation and Neurosurgery at Houston Methodist Hospital, in Houston, Texas. We interviewed him previously about his work in episode 93, which I encourage you to check out. Adam is a PhD Researcher, Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Health and Human Performance at the University of Houston, in Houston, TX. Dimitry and Adam are long time friends and colleagues, and they saw Adam’s sabbatical at the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology in Tanzania as an opportunity to More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-127.html

In this episode, we have another insightful conversation with Dave Marver, CEO of ONWARD Medical. We discuss their FDA cleared transcutaneous stimulation device, the ARC-EX, as well as their other devices in the pipeline. Additionally... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-126.html

Today we are talking about bioinformatics with Dr. Abel Torres Espin. Abel is an Assistant Professor and Director of the health data DRIVEN lab at the School of Public Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo in Canada. He has worked with... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-125.html

Today’s guest is Dr. James Krause. James is a Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Center for Rehabilitation Research in Neurologic Conditions at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Krause has worked in the field of spinal cord injury throughout his career focusing on research designed to improve health, employment, and participation for people with SCI and other disabilities... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-124.html

Today’s guest is Dr. Chet Moritz. Chet is the CJ and Elizabeth Hwang endowed professor in the departments Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rehabilitation Medicine and Neurobiology & Biophysics at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle. He also serves as the Co-director for the Center for Neurotechnology. Chet’s work in Transcutaneous Spinal Stimulation (TSS) heavily contributed to the Onward Medical Arc-EX device which recently gained FDA approval. More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-123.html

Today we are re-airing another episode of the Unexpected Journey Podcast. This is such a great, quick little interview with my friend, colleague and Development Director at U2FP, Quinn Brett. In this episode... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-122.html

On today’s episode, we are re-airing an episode of The Unexpected Journey podcast. This one is an interview of yours truly. It focuses on my journey to SCI advocacy after my accident in 2017. We talk about my life before and immediately after my wreck, and why I became active in this effort for more and better research outcomes. I also talk about the mission, passion and initiatives here at U2FP. More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-121.html

Welcome back to our final episode in this three-part series about the barriers to progress and the treatment of spinal cord injuries. We’re once again joined by neurosurgeon, researcher and lived experience advocate, Dr. Kent New. In this episode, we finish up our discussion of the many barriers to developing treatments, focusing primarily on regulatory agencies. We then move on to consider potential solutions to the problems we've uncovered in... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-120.html

This is our version of a special bulletin. And we are interrupting our regularly scheduled programming with this update on a major setback for SCI research. On March 15th, Congress passed a bill which eliminated arguably the most effective Spinal Cord Injury Research program in the world... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-119.html

Welcome back to our second episode in this three-part series about the barriers to progress in the treatment of spinal cord injuries. We’re once again joined by neurosurgeon, researcher and lived-experience advocate, Dr. Kent New. In this episode, we discuss the problems associated with preclinical, as well as early- and late-stage clinical trials. If you missed it, you can ... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-118.html

Today’s conversation is the first in a three part series with Dr. Kent New on the barriers to progress for SCI treatments. Kent is a neurosurgeon and researcher who was educated at Georgetown and Duke Universities. His career led him to brain tumor research and clinical practice at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida and then to overseeing clinical research at Ascension St. Vincent’s Hospital. In 2014 Kent suffered a C6 level spinal cord injury from a motor vehicle accident. He is uniquely qualified through his... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-117.html

Today I’m talking with Jason Biundo. Jason is a lived-experience graduate student at Harvard Medical School. He earned a dual degree in Neuroscience and Biology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. It's worth noting that some of that degree was earned from a hospital bed while recovering from his spinal cord injury at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. Beyond this, Jason is a personal friend of ours and U2FP advocate. We begin our conversation exploring... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-116.html

Today we’re talking with Dr. Jacob Goldsmith. Jacob is a research scientist at the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Our conversation will explore the interesting relationship between Testosterone and Spinal Cord Injury. More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-115.html

In Chapter 8 of Kate Willette’s advocacy bible, “Don’t Call it a Miracle,” she tells us the story of a human cell with special, regenerative characteristics. A cell that, although not a stem cell, perpetually repairs and replaces neural tissue throughout our life. It's called an olfactory ensheathing cell (OEC) or glia (OEG). Parts of the story seemed like the wild west with questionable scientists taking some risky chances, pulling cells out of people's noses and injecting them into their spinal cords, leading to catastrophe. Other, more conservative scientists were doing work that resulted in almost unbelievable results in... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-114.html

We’re back with round two of stem cells and their application to Spinal Cord Injury, with our tour guide, Alina Garbuzov. In this episode, we wrap up our overview of stem cell types, sources and potential uses in spinal cord injury. We also field some listener questions from part 1 and talk about the work that Alina is doing at the Mark Tuszynski Lab at UCSD. We realized after the fact that these two conversations are... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-113.html

This is the first in a two-part series covering the role of stem cells in spinal cord injury with Dr. Alina Garbuzov. Along with the experience she brings as a person living with an SCI, Alina is a researcher, working in the Mark Tuszynski Lab at the Center for Neural Repair at the University of California, San Diego. Today's conversation is part one, where we introduce Alina and learn about her... More info: https://u2fp.org/get-educated/curecast/episode-112.html