Healing the Spine

Louisville's journey to become a leading center of spinal cord research

For Dr. Scott Whittemore, success has been a long time coming. After four years of research at the University of Louisville, he and his colleagues at the Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center (KSCIRC) published groundbreaking research using stem cells in spinal cord therapy.

It’s a first glimpse of national attention the Louisville center hopes will help it become a major player in spinal treatment.

The research, published in the July issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, details how Whittemore’s team partially repaired damaged spinal cords in rats using specialized stem cells. Until then, the idea of fixing spinal cords in such a way had only been the stuff of scientific speculation.

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