Name:
Developing neurotechnologies for spinal cord injuries with Grégoire Courtine
Description:
Developing neurotechnologies for spinal cord injuries with Grégoire Courtine
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Duration:
T00H04M19S
Embed URL:
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Content URL:
https://cadmoreoriginalmedia.blob.core.windows.net/8a633f74-77a0-454d-b9ae-ee3d36ba2e2f/SpinalCordNC_V3_04.11.19.mp4?sv=2019-02-02&sr=c&sig=f4v5MRUohxTQF6pwcLanTO2mVGI97fxlYn4hOSE9wUw%3D&st=2025-07-08T06%3A04%3A03Z&se=2025-07-08T08%3A09%3A03Z&sp=r
Upload Date:
2020-01-07T00:00:00.0000000
Transcript:
Language: EN.
Segment:0 .
[MUSIC PLAYING]
GREGOIRE COURTINE: My name is Grégoire Courtine. I'm a Director of a research laboratory at the Swiss Institute of Technology (Lausanne, Switzerland). Been working for the past 20 years on developing treatment for spinal cord injury.
Segment:1 Could you provide us with an overview of your talk?.
GREGOIRE COURTINE: I mean, it's a great honor, actually, that this conference is providing me with, because they asked me to really provide an overview of the past 20 years of my work, going all the way from the basic discovery that we made in preclinical models, especially rodents, all the way to the translation to treatments that help individuals with spinal cord injury to walk again.
Segment:2 What challenges are there in developing neurotechnologies for spinal cord injuries?.
GREGOIRE COURTINE: I mean, currently, it's very simple. There are no treatments for spinal cord injury. So the challenge is huge because everything needs to be invented. I am working in the field that is, in a way, more pragmatic than approach related to molecule, to axon regeneration. It is still quite complex with pharmacology stuff. We're developing neurotechnology.
GREGOIRE COURTINE: We are stimulating the spinal cord electrically, we have a robotic system, et cetera, approaches that may be easier to translate from preclinical model to humans. And in that sense, despite the complexity of the technology and the complexity of the financial context and the human context, it's still much easier to translate this kind of neurotechnology than it is for cell-based therapy or pharmacological approach.
Segment:3 Since the publication of the STImulation Movement Overground (STIMO) study, what further research has been done? .
GREGOIRE COURTINE: The main advance have been to include more patients. It was only on three participants. Now we are including a total of seven participants with the same results. So this is very reassuring that we can really reproduce and reinforce the results. In parallel, we have been developing neurotechnology that are really tailored for this application. What does this mean concretely?
GREGOIRE COURTINE: Better implantable electrode array to stimulate the spinal cord, better stimulator, better implanting in the body, like pacemakers, to really stimulate the spinal cord electrically. And we look forward to implementing this in our patient in the near future.
Segment:4 How close are we to turning this rehabilitation paradigm into a treatment in the clinic? .
GREGOIRE COURTINE: This is the next big challenge. I've been involved for 20 years in translational research, starting in preclinical model rodents.
GREGOIRE COURTINE: And I think the first breakthrough is to go from the paralyzed rats to the rats walking again. So in-depth science, really understand the mechanics of it. It was the first breakthrough. The second breakthrough was from 0 to 1, when you can see in one patient, for us it was, like, three patients, that it is possible. It means that it really shows that it could become a treatment.
GREGOIRE COURTINE: This is the second breakthrough. What I am realizing now that I'm involved in pushing this, the word commonly-available treatment, is that there's a third breakthrough, which is really expanding, scaling up this proof of concept to technology that are reliable, that can be used by anyone in the world, and that are endorsed by insurances. These are the main challenges that we are addressing.
GREGOIRE COURTINE: And I hope that within the next 5 years, we will have succeeded.
Segment:5 Where do you hope to see the field in 5–10 years’ time? .
GREGOIRE COURTINE: So it is clear that neurotechnologies are going to become a treatment. And I am very confident with this, but it's not a cure at all, all right? So without more regenerative fibers, without more spare tissue, you will not have a very useful recovery.
GREGOIRE COURTINE: So it is clear that in the future we must be able to combine biological repair intervention, stem cell, growth factor, I mean, all sorts of technology that are being developed to have more spare tissue and more regrowing axons, together with neurotechnology that really enable to integrate this new connection and make them useful to put this movement and enable neurological recovery. That's a big challenge.
GREGOIRE COURTINE: And that's what we have to achieve in the next decade. [MUSIC PLAYING]
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