IOM member Mary Bunge

Mary Bartlett Bunge, an internationally recognized authority on central nervous system regeneration, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine.

A professor of cell biology, neurological surgery, and neurology at the Miller School of Medicine’s Miami Project to Cure Paralysis who joined the UM faculty 24 years ago, Bunge has worked for nearly four decades on the Schwann cell, which she and her late husband, physician Richard Bunge, determined to be a key to helping repair damaged spinal cords.

Her work with Schwann cells has led to numerous discoveries and is now central to The Miami Project’s phase one clinical trial to evaluate the safety of transplanting the Schwann cells of recently paralyzed patients into the site of their injury.

Bunge shared the recognition with her late husband, her mentors, Patrick Wood, research professor of neurology, and the numerous outstanding students and fellows who trained in the Bunge-Wood laboratory.

“I am very surprised but very deeply honored to have been selected to be a member of the Institute of Medicine,” says Bunge, the Christine E. Lynn Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience. “Ever since childhood I have wanted to make a difference and do something worthwhile. I hope that this honor helps confirm that I have achieved this goal.”

Bunge is one of six current UM faculty who are IOM members. Her 39-year-old individual research grant from the National Institutes of Health was recently renewed for another five years.

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Miami Project begins FDA-approved Schwann cell trial for spinal cord injury patients

W. Dalton Dietrich, scientific director of The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis Photo by Donna Victor

Schwann Cells Courtesy Miller School of Medicine

With 27 years of promising research came new hope for the new year. In December doctors at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis performed the first-ever Food and Drug Administration-approved Schwann cell transplantation on a patient with a recent spinal cord injury.

The procedure was performed by University of Miami doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital five months after the FDA green-lighted its Phase 1 clinical trial designed to evaluate the safety and feasibility of transplanting human Schwann cells, which are found in the peripheral nervous system.

The Miami Project, a Center of Excellence at the Miller School of Medicine, will enroll eight participants with acute thoracic spinal cord injury in the trial, which is part of the Christine E. Lynn Clinical Trials Initiative. They will be followed for a year post-surgery and then monitored for four more years under a separate clinical protocol.

“This trial and these first patients in this trial specifically are extremely important to our mission of curing paralysis,” says neurosurgeon Barth Green, co-founder and chair of The Miami Project, and professor and chair of neurological surgery. “This achievement reaffirms that the tens of millions of dollars and the incalculable work hours were well invested in this first-of-a-kind human Schwann cell project.”

Allan Levi, professor of neurological surgery, orthopaedics, and rehabilitation, and James Guest, associate professor of neurological surgery, conducted the historic procedure several weeks after the patient’s Schwann cells were harvested from tissue obtained from a nerve in one leg and then grown for several weeks in a culturing facility.

W. Dalton Dietrich, scientific director of The Miami Project and professor of neurological surgery, neurology, and cell biology and anatomy, says the trial’s successful completion “will lay the critical foundation for future cell-based therapies to target spinal cord injuries.”

Miami Project: miamiproject.miami.edu/page.aspx?pid=1048

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