Researcher working to repair injured neurons after SCI using viral delivery of genes

Dr. Murray Blackmore

Minneapolis-based Unite 2 Fight Paralysis is a non-profit organization devoted to empower the international spinal cord injury community to cure paralysis through advocacy, education, and support for research. Their CureCast podcasts are a series of interviews with research scientists, advocates and difference makers in the SCI community, conducted by Matthew Rodreick, Executive Director of U2FP and Jason Stoffer, Cure Advocacy Network Manager and host of CureCast. In this 71-minute episode, they interview Dr. Murray Blackmore from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin whose research is immersed in identifying candidate genes toward nerve regeneration for Spinal Cord Injury.

As a Research Assistant Professor at the Miami Project, Murray used a gene therapy approach to test these new gene targets for the ability to promote axon regeneration in the injured spinal cord. He is continuing this line of research at Marquette, using viral delivery of genes to injured neurons in rodent models of spinal injury in order to foster repair.

They discuss how spinal cord injury invited itself into Murray’s family from a devastating car accident in his early teens where his mother suffered a C5 injury. And how this led to Murray’s work and passionate efforts to discover a meaningful path to curing paralysis.

After Murray provides a primer on genetics as a starting point to explain the complex methodologies applied in his lab to test gene candidates, they have a bit of a sidebar conversation regarding the intersection of research and passion and follow that with some of Murray's 'pie in the sky' ideas for creating change in the larger research process.