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Program

 

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Keynote Speakers

James Guest, MD PhD FACS

James Guest, MD PhD FACS
James Guest is a clinician-scientist whose work focuses on spinal cord injury (SCI) at the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. He completed his MD with honors in research at the University of Alberta and his neurosurgical residency at the University of British Columbia. His PhD in Neuroscience was completed at the University of Miami under the direction of Drs. Richard and Mary Bunge, pioneers in the biology and translation of Schwann cell transplantation to the central nervous system. He also completed a fellowship in spinal surgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute under the direction of Dr. Volker Sonntag. Post-doctoral training occurred during the last two years of residency in cooperation with Drs. John Steeves and Wolfram Tetzlaff, founding faculty of ICORD (International Collaboration on Research Discoveries) in Vancouver, Canada.

Dr. Guest spent 11 years as chief of spinal neurosurgery at the Miami Veteran’s hospital and is now fully devoted to translational and clinical research within the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. His laboratory studies cellular and neuroprosthetic treatments for SCI emphasizing the use of large animal models. He is a principal investigator on clinical trials of neuroprotection and cellular therapy for SCI. He is a consultant to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and an investigator in the North American Clinical Trials Network (NACTN). He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Neurotrauma and several other SCI-devoted organizations. He previously served on the board of the American Spinal Cord Injury Association and is a member of the translational research steering committee of the Rick Hansen Institute. In addition, Dr. Guest has an interest in International SCI care and research and has worked in Haiti and Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Guest has trained more than 25 post-doctoral fellows, medical and undergraduate students. The research training emphasizes acquisition of skills in research translation and in the development and validation of new technologies and devices.


Nicole Mittmann, MSc, PhD

Nicole Mittmann, MSc, PhD
Executive Director, Health Outcomes and PharmacoEconomic (HOPE) Research Centre, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre;
Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Toronto;
Adjunct Professor, International Centre for Health Innovation, Richard Ivey School of Business, Western University

Biography
Nicole Mittmann holds a faculty position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Pharmacology. She is also a Scientist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and a member of the Department of Medicine. Nicole is the Executive Director at Health Outcomes and Pharmacoeconomics (HOPE) Research Centre. She is also an innovator in residence at the Ivey Business School in London, Ontario.

In her academic capacity, Nicole has a proven track record of publications. She has conducted and collaborated on notable research in the areas of meta-analysis, economic evaluations, outcomes research and utility assessments. Research methodologies include the examination of large databases, economic methodologies and decision analysis. Clinical areas of interest include oncology, cardiology, trauma, infectious disease, and health policy.

In her capacity at the HOPE Research Centre, Nicole is responsible for designing, managing and executing health economics and clinical outcomes research projects from the government, hospital and pharmaceutical industry perspectives.

Recent work is determining the burden of illness of spinal cord injury from a Canadian perspective. Dr. Mittmann is funded by a number of organizations including the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation. Dr. Mittmann is currently the co-chair of the Committee on Economic Analysis (CEA) at the National Cancer Institute of Canada. Responsibilities include embedding economic parameters in clinical trials, economic evaluations and guideline development.


Amy K. Wagner, MD

Amy K. Wagner, MD
Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Research
UPMC Endowed Research Chair
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Associate Director Rehabilitation Research
Safar Center for Resuscitation Research
Training Faculty
Center for Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh

Amy K. Wagner MD is a tenured Associate Professor and Endowed Research Chair in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Pittsburgh. She is also an Associate Director for Rehabilitation Research at the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research. Dr. Wagner is a leading investigator in the use of biomarkers in developing and optimizing individualized treatment outcomes, also known as “theranostics” or “personalized medicine.” She has defined this field of translational, rehabilitation centered biomarkers research as Rehabilomics Research, (see www.rehabilomics.pitt.edu for more information). Dr. Wagner currently holds a NIDRR funded TBI Model System of Research and Care Excellence to further develop the TBI Rehabilomics Research Model. Her research has also been funded by the DoD, NIH, and CDC. Her research also focuses on the neurobiology of neuroplasticity and recovery after TBI and how commonly used therapeutic agents impact neurobiological and neurobehavioral processes associated with neuroplasticity and recovery. Dr. Wagner has published more than 50 original research manuscripts and has over a dozen review articles on her work. Dr. Wagner has served as research mentor to dozens of undergraduates, medical students, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and resident physicians, and to date, they have received over 40 awards and scholarships for their research. She is a member of the University School of Medicine Graduate Faculty, is Training Faculty for the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh. Clinically, Dr. Wagner treats patients with neurological conditions and injuries in inpatient rehabilitation and as a physiatrist consultant during their acute hospitalization at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.


Gale G. Whiteneck, PhD, FACRM

Gale G. Whiteneck, PhD, FACRM
Senior Principal Investigator, Craig Hospital

Dr. Whiteneck was the Director of Research at Craig Hospital from 1986 through 2012 where he managed all research activities for the federally funded Rocky Mountain Regional Spinal Injury System, the Rocky Mountain Regional Brain Injury System, and coordinated all clinical research at Craig Hospital. Major investigations focused on SCI and TBI clinical trials, epidemiology, functional assessment, societal participation measurement, long-term outcomes, aging, and the cost of lifetime care. He is currently a Senior Principal Investigator at Craig Hospital and was the Principal Investigator of the multicenter SCIRehab Study focusing on identifying SCI rehabilitation interventions associated with positive outcomes. He is the author of over 100 peer-reviewed journal publications; has developed measures of societal participation and environmental factors; and has been honored by many professional organizations.


Douglas J. Weber, PhD

Douglas J. Weber, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Bioengineering
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
University of Pittsburgh

Douglas J. Weber, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Weber is currently splitting his time between the University of Pittsburgh and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he is a program manager in the Biological Technology Office (BTO). Dr. Weber received a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Arizona State University and completed post-doctoral training in the Centre for Neuroscience at the University of Alberta. His primary research area is Neural Engineering, including studies of motor learning and control of walking and reaching with particular emphasis on applications to neurotechnology and rehabilitation medicine. Specific research interests include functional electrical stimulation, activity-based neuromotor rehabilitation, neural coding, and neural control of prosthetic devices. Active projects in his lab are focused on developing sensorimotor neuroprostheses that target the spinal nerves using arrays of penetrating and non-penetrating microelectrodes for neural recording and microstimulation. Dr. Weber is also a principal investigator in the human rehabilitation and neural engineering laboratory (hRNEL) where he collaborates on projects aimed at developing brain machine interfaces (BMIs) in humans.

 

Consumer Keynote Speaker

Kim Anderson-Erisman, Ph.D.

Kim Anderson-Erisman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Neurological Surgery
Director of Education, The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

Biography
Dr. Anderson-Erisman is a Research Associate Professor and the Director of Education for The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Anderson-Erisman’s research has focused on translational investigations and bridging the gap between basic science, clinical science, and the public community living with spinal cord injury (SCI).

Her current projects focus on:

  1. Aging related changes in bladder health after SCI;
  2. Determining the minimum amount of exercise and locomotor training required for clinical trials targeting chronic SCI;
  3. Identifying the facilitators and barriers to clinical trial participation from the SCI consumer perspective.

In addition to pursuing her own research regarding chronic injury, she serves as the scientific interface to the public for the diverse array of research being conducted at The Miami Project and is now also managing their first cellular transplantation clinical trial.

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