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The Miami Project Education Department has stepped into the “cyber” age and has been hosting a series of distant learning programs with a high school in Virginia.  The initial series is between Miami Project researchers and The Mountain Vista Governor’s School, which provides a research and technology-based integrated program in math, science, and humanities for gifted and talented junior and high school students.

The goal of the school’s program is to “challenge students to reach their full potential as independent thinkers capable of assuming leadership roles in a constantly changing global society”.  This is in line with the goal of  The Miami Project in terms of challenging conventional wisdom and developing independent thoughts as they relate to a cure for paralysis.

The seeds of the distance learning program began in 2007 when Scientific Director, Dr. Dalton Dietrich and his brother, John Dietrich, who is the lead Research Instructor at Mountain Vista, had a thought to connect students with leading researchers at The Miami Project.

The curriculum covers multiple aspects of neurotrauma research, the specialty of The Miami Project and the first lecture was in December 2009.  The series includes participation by Drs. Kim Anderson-Erisman, Coleen Atkins, Damien Pearse, Helen Bramlett, Edelle Field-Fote, Christine Thomas and Mark Nash.

Students are required to do background research on issues associated with The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis prior to each distant learning session.  They are required to critically think about these issues and formulate questions.  It is a challenge that the students are taking head-on.  “It amazes me how much, we in the science field, take for granted regarding what these young people know and have been exposed to in life.  My students have commented on how fortunate they feel to have this opportunity to learn first-hand, with real scientists, especially in a synchronous environment” states John Dietrich.

To learn more about the specific work of the researchers in this story, click on their names above or find them at the faculty pages.

-- posted March 22, 2010 at 1:00pm

Dr. Mary Bartlett Bunge has been an integral part of our research team since 1989 when she came with her late husband and former scientific director, Richard P. Bunge, Ph.D.  She has been nothing short of a research superstar throughout her long and illustrious career, especially with The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.  She has spent much of her life working with Schwann cells, and it is a discovery that includes Schwann cells that she and Dr. Damien Pearse reported in 2004 which is now the impetus for our application to the FDA for The Miami Project’s first ever clinical trial involving Schwann cell transplantation.

She first learned about Schwann cells while she was a postdoctoral student at Columbia Presbyterian College of Physicians and Surgeons.  After studying nervous tissue in culture, it became her late husband’s vision to use a piece of human peripheral nerve to obtain Schwann cells which could be transplanted into the injury site of the same person, and thus avoid immune rejection.  After the initial studies of Schwann cell transplantation into the spinal cord, the Bunges realized that they could enhance the positive results of Schwann cells by combining them with other strategies.  This research ultimately led to the 2004 scientific discovery.  Dr. Mary Bunge is at heart a basic scientist, but from the beginning has always been interested in how her basic science work could be relevant to clinical conditions, and has always felt that the Schwann cell held great promise in the search for a cure for paralysis.  In the coming months and years The Miami Project looks forward to seeing the fruits of her life’s work.

To learn more about Dr. Bunge and her work, or that of any of our other researchers, please visit the faculty page by clicking here.

--  posted March 15, 2010 at 3:40pm

In today’s blog post we would like to focus on some of the laboratory research of one of our longstanding stars, Dr. Christine Thomas. She is a native of New Zealand and has worked with us for more than twenty years. Her research interests are in neuromuscular weakness, fatigue, spasms and nerve regeneration.

An area of her work is focusing on the muscles of individuals who have been paralyzed by spinal cord injuries (SCI) and trying to save these muscles from atrophy. As you may know, voluntary control of the muscles is eliminated when SCI severs nerve fibers or kills the motorneurons that supply muscles. Both of these processes result in widespread atrophy of muscles, particularly after motoneuron death which is common at the injury site. In this situation, the muscles atrophy really quickly and will simply waste away unless their nerve supply is restored.

To try and accomplish this restoration, Dr. Thomas’ lab is examining how the transplantation of replacement cells near the damaged area can help to rescue the muscles because each and every muscle can be important to the quality of life of those living with paralysis day in and day out.

Another area that her lab is looking into is muscle fatigue following SCI. Muscles that are paralyzed following spinal cord injury are highly fatigable. They are measuring this fatigue and determining the contributing factors. What is learned can have an impact on how functional electrical stimulation (FES) is used in those with paralysis. Perhaps this can be useful in the rehabilitation and recovery of those who are paralyzed.

These are just two of the multi faceted research approaches taken by our 28 lab groups targeting the mysteries of SCI. To learn more about Dr. Thomas and her work, or that of any of our other researchers, please visit the faculty page.

-- Posted February 23, 2010 at 11:25am 

Welcome to the official Miami Project / The Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis blog. In this regularly featured offering, we will have a rotating cast of bloggers that range from our President Marc Buoniconti, Nick Buoniconti, Drs. Green and Dietrich, one of our renowned researchers or a celebrity supporter.

What we are hoping to do through this new blog is to provide a quick and insightful look into the workings behind The Miami Project and The Buoniconti Fund. We’ll provide accounts of the exciting research in our labs, behind the scenes updates of events, and occasionally a message from some of our celebrity friends and supporters.

Hopefully you’ll find this new blog to be informative and presented in a new and refreshing way. Be sure to check back often as the blog will be updated regularly. You never know who will be blogging next……

Posted on February 17, 2010 – 1:00PM