Global Cooperation and Support of SCI Research

Spinal cord injury (SCI) research is truly a global endeavor.  Strategic distribution of scarce resources (both time and money) requires effective communication and thoughtful coordination.  From a funding perspective, the challenge is setting and balancing priorities both within the SCI research community and among competing disorders and disciplines.  This requires communication between a broad range of funders including governmental, non-profit and for-profit investors. From a clinical perspective, one challenge has been to identify tractable therapeutic targets as well as ways to efficiently address safety and efficacy of novel treatment strategies.  Current efforts to define the natural history of SCI and identify feasible and sensitive outcome measures for different phases of clinical trials will be reviewed.  Finally, recent efforts to streamline translational and clinical testing, such as development of guidelines for clinical trials, common data elements for SCI, and assessment of rigor and replicability of preclinical studies will be reviewed.