There is new hope for spinal cord patients

Researchers have unveiled a new tool for scientists that could one day lead to a breakthrough for people with spinal cord injuries and diseases. It's a map of how genes work in the spine, developed by Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft.

Three years ago his science institute did the same thing with the brain. Until now, scientists haven't fully understood how these genes behave. So they couldn't develop more effective treatments for hundreds of thousands of Americans with spinal cord injuries and diseases, like tumors on the spine. "Radiation and chemotherapy become what we call palliative: just a way of keeping them comfortable," said Dr. Andrea Douglas, a Georgetown University Hospital Neurosurgeon.

The Allen Institute for Brain Science unveiled what they call a road map to the spine: the Allen Spinal Cord Atlas, a free, online tool that'll show researchers how the spine's 20,00 genes work. "It gives researchers that "Ah Ha!" moment, that peanut butter and chocolate moment that says this is, this combined with knowledge that I already had leads me to new insights and breakthroughs," said Allan Jones, a Ph.D. at the Allen Institute for Brain Science.

More than a quarter-million Americans suffer from spinal cord injuries, including 25,000 Iraq war veterans. Even more are affected by Lou Gehrig's Disease and multiple sclerosis. Washington Senator Patty Murray's father was one of them. "I am so excited for the potential this research will bring us," Senator Murray said. Seeing what the genes in a normal spine look like and how they interact will allow scientists to fix abnormal ones, and to connect what they do in the lab to patients.

"It helps us do our job faster. But what it does is it brings everybody hope. That kind of hope is hard to put a price tag on," Dr. Jane Roskams of the University of British Columbia Brain Research Center explained.

The price tag for this project was over two million dollars. The ALS Association, National MS Society and other groups who could never afford this type of research on their own helped pay for it.