Research Shirley Ryan AbilityLab is the largest physical rehabilitation research center in the world. Currently, there are more than 200 research projects underway, and we hold eight federal research designations from the National Institutes of Health. That means you’ll have early access to innovative therapies and groundbreaking technologies, including the latest prosthetics, orthotics and assistive devices. You may even have an opportunity to be involved in a trial of new treatments under development.
PATIENT STEM CELL BANK FOR PRECISION NEUROTRAUMA RESEARCH Despite the same rehabilitation treatment, some patients with SCI or TBI make life-altering functional gains while others make only limited progress. The most difficult factor that influences a patient’s outcome, is his/her genetic differences. To address this challenge, we have developed a one-of-kind, patient-specific neurotrauma paradigm. To validate this approach, patient-specific nerve cells are generated from people who have suffered different types of neurotrauma (TBI, SCI and peripheral nerve) with carefully documented clinical outcomes. These
them. With our biomarker technology we are currently investigating how different types of walking exercise impacts your own joints, whether you are an adolescent with cerebral palsy and have joint pain, or a person with knee osteoarthritis who just wants to play a round of golf. LOW COST PROSTHETIC ARM SYSTEM Losing an arm has profound economic, social and psychological effects. An artificial arm (prosthesis) can help to replace lost function, enabling people to live independently, work and participate in society. Our team has worked to develop an arm system that will provide access to functional, affordable prosthetic devices for individuals in low-income countries and provide a valuable prosthetic option for low-income or uninsured individuals in the United States. OPEN SOURCE BIONIC LEG People with leg amputations need prostheses that provide appropriate power so that they can reengage in previous work and leisure activities. With researchers at the University of Michigan, we are building a prosthetic leg (with an ankle and knee) that is affordable. Not only will this device benefit lower-limb amputees, but the widespread use of this device will also allow for direct comparison of different control approaches, making future research more efficient.
patient-derived cells are then traumatized in the research laboratory and their decline and recovery is quantified to test the theory that patient-specific human stem cell models can predict neurotrauma outcomes. We hope this will lead us to better clinical trial design and the expansion of more personalized neurotrauma medicine.
USING A PERSONALIZED MEDICINE APPROACH
Using a personalized medicine approach, our goal is to evaluate how an individual with osteoarthritis biologically responds to specific exercises so we can develop an individualized rehabilitation program for
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