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Facilities of Research Excellence in Spinal Cord Injury

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Objective
NINDS's goal is to establish training and research facilities to support the study of rodent models of spinal cord injury (SCI). Funded through contracts, the FORE-SCI provide training to new researchers on best practices in SCI research in order to promote consistency of procedures and animal care across laboratories. Another role of the support is to review and replicate novel treatments for SCI, and to compare the efficacy of different treatments in a standardized environment with a minimum of variability in surgery, animal care, outcome evaluation and cellular analyses. It is further intended that these sites should be the nuclei/nexus for collaborative studies for SCI.

Background
Although the past decade has seen groundbreaking new research that hold promise for therapies for SCI, the translation of these findings to new treatments has been hampered by several factors. First, novel and promising results from one laboratory have not been confirmed by replication in other laboratories, or in other model systems. This inability to confirm potentially important outcomes with confidence has prevented new approaches from moving forward to clinical studies. Second, new molecules and mechanisms that have arisen from research in other arenas are slow to be introduced to this field because of difficulties in using and maintaining animal models of SCI. It is a great challenge for new researchers to learn the surgical procedures involved in producing these models of SCI, as well as best practices for caring for animals incapacitated by the injury. Finally, there is a need is for new measures of functional outcomes that will allow accurate assessment of animal behavior after SCI and with recovery. (See also the NINDS Workshop Translating Promising Strategies for Spinal Cord Injury Therapy)

To meet these needs, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) issued a Broad Agency Announcement and Request for Proposals (RFP-NIH-NINDS-BAA-RFP-02-09) to establish national Facilities of Research Excellence in Spinal Cord Injury (FORE-SCI) through a series of contracts. The objectives of the FORE-SCI Program are to:

  • Provide new investigators with hand-on training on current and best practices and techniques in the use, care and evaluation of rodent models of SCI research.
  • Promote the recruitment of new investigators to SCI research and to foster collaborative studies in this field.
  • Replicate and assess promising, published studies that could lead to treatments for SCI, and to share the results of these replications with the community.
  • Develop new methods for evaluating recovery from spinal cord dysfunction.

Sites and goals
To achieve these objectives, NINDS committed a total of $8 million to fund FORE-SCI for five years. Six applications were received; following review by a panel of SCI investigators, five contracts were awarded to the following 3 FORE-SCI:

The Ohio State University received a contract to provide an annual course that trains investigators in methodologies involved in modeling SCI in rodents.

The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, at the University of Miami School of Medicine was awarded two contracts. The first establishes a SCI Scholars Program to recruit outstanding new investigators to SCI research and to establish new collaborations between different laboratories. A second contract supports the replication of significant, published research in SCI, in particular studies on the protection of tissue and the prevention of spread of damage following trauma to the spinal cord.

The University of California, Irvine also received two contracts. One goal is to replicate important published results in SCI, with an interest in studies on chronic injury. As part of the effort to replicate key studies, both UCI and the Miami Project may also conduct experiments to compare the efficacy of different individual treatments and treatment combinations for SCI. Through a second contract, UCI will develop new and relevant methods for evaluating and measuring recovery from spinal cord dysfunction.

Last updated July 16, 2008