The Walkabout Foundation

Whirlwind designs are tested to achieve double the international wheelchair standard for durability. And because the grit of village roads will eventually wear out any chair, the “rough rider” uses only locally available parts like bicycle wheels.

Today, I spoke with principal investigator Reggie Edgerton, a professor of neurobiology and physiological sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, to learn more about the research, what it means and when similar studies will be conducted in humans. Here’s our conversation.

One of The Miami Project’s most anticipated human clinical trial initiatives is testing human Schwann cell transplants in humans with acute and chronic SCI.
The Initiative was announced after Miami Project scientists had encouraging research findings in 2004 that showed up to 70% return of normal walking function in paralyzed laboratory rats.  These results were seen [...]

Wall Street Journal’s Ron Winslow and Geron’s Dr. Thomas B. Okarma comment on the significance of the first human clinical trial using embryonic stem-cells. 
“This is the dawn of a new era in medical therapeutics,” said Thomas B. Okarma, Geron’s president and chief executive officer. The hope that stem-cell therapy will repair and regenerate diseased organs [...]

Scientists at UCLA and the University of Zurich have been able to make rats with completely severed spinal cords walk again. This is a first!