SCI Superstar: Wise Young

Maybe his parents were onto something calling him Wise. Thrusted into the world of spinal cord injuries after a surgery internship at NYU (he decided to join their neurosurgery department, eventually becoming director of neuroresearch), Dr. Wise Young has been one of the leading spinal cord injury researchers since 1984. If you have a spinal cord injury, knowing who this amazing man is paramount.

From promoting research in China where spinal cord injuries are more common than in any other country (there are approximately 80,000 new spinal cord injuries every year there) to human trials he’s spearheading in the US, here’s everything you need to know about one of our greatest champions.

Why He’s Fearless

Back in the 1980’s, when everyone was saying no and there is no hope for a cure, Dr. Wise Young was one of the few doctors saying yes. From nerve rerouting, walking therapy, umbilical cord blood transplants using Lithium, adult and embryonic stem cell research, Dr. Wise has dabbled in all types of spinal cord injury research.

He was part of a 1990 team that discovered steroids (high-dose methylprednisolone) were effective in treating acute spinal cord injuries, and he developed the first standardized rat spinal cord injury model used worldwide for testing therapies. And in 1995, when Christopher Reeve was injured, it was Dr. Wise Young he called, and they were close friends until Chris’s death in 2004.

Dr. Wise Young has been the director of the W.M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience for decades and is a Professor at Rutgers. He also founded the Carecure message boards which were made for people with SCI to interact and get first-hand SCI information.

It was Chinese dancer Sang Lang, who was in NYC as a gymnast to compete but broke her neck, when Dr. Wise began to think about bringing spinal cord injury research to China since their is less limitations government-wise and they have money. And in 2005, he founded ChinaSCINet, a group of 20+ research centers across China where they tested promising therapies in clinical trials. His program branched into India, with 24 centers, and in Norway.

What’s Next?

Dr. Young has spearheaded human clinical trials in the US  over the years using umbilical cord therapy at some of the top rehab hospitals in the US, like Shepherd Center, Craig, Kessler and Mt. Sinai. He won’t stop. He lives to cure spinal cord injury, and when a cure is eventually found, you can bet he will have a hand in it.

— Dr. Wise Young at W.M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience