קרן ישראל לנפגעי חוט השדרה

The Israel Foundation For Spinal Cord Injuries

Research

Spinal cord injuries (SCI) cause severe disability, paralysis and functional loss. The severity of the injury depends on its location, the extent of the damage and how reversible that damage is.

Healing, recovery and rehabilitation depend on the regenerative ability of the nerve cells and the reconstitution of connections between nerves and fibers. Unfortunately, there is still no efficient way to reconstruct damaged spinal cord nerves and fibers.

Research is being conducted in Israel and overseas into blunt spinal cord injuries but they too are either very basic or at the lab tests stage. Very few have any clinical validity.

In light of the dearth of research into spinal cord injuries and the worrying increase in the number of military and civilian victims in Israel, the IFSCI aims to promote and encourage research and involvement in the treatment and rehabilitation of spinal cord injury victims.

Research of this kind can take years of work and costs a fortune. The IFSCI supports and accompanies these studies.

Amongst other studies, the IFSCI supports the work of:

Prof. Tamar Weiss and her team in studying and developing interactive simulation systems for the functional rehabilitation of spinal cord injury victims.

Prof. Shulamit Levenberg and her team at the Technion who are conducting a revolutionary study using tissue engineering and stem cells – which are very similar to spine cord cells – to heal spinal cord injuries. This breakthrough solution employs artificial, 3D biodegradable polymer “scaffolds” to support spinal cord regeneration.