Until recently, spinal cord injury was viewed as irreversible.
Difficult, complex and permanent.
The idea of restoring movement or function after spinal cord injury sat largely outside mainstream medical thinking. Rehabilitation, adaptation and quality of life were the focus.
Recent scientific and research interest in spinal cord injury has led to increased knowledge and understanding, reinforcing just how complex and difficult to repair spinal cord injury is. But what has shifted, thanks to this growing body of information, is the long-held belief that spinal cord injury is permanent.
We now believe we can find a cure for spinal cord injury. That’s right — we believe we can, in the case of many future injuries, prevent, and in some existing cases, even reverse paralysis.
Spinal cord injury does not discriminate. It arrives without warning – on a sporting field, on a highway, in a backyard, or simply from a fall down a flight of stairs. It happens to children and grandparents, to elite athletes and people going about an ordinary Tuesday. In Australia, around 350 new spinal cord injuries occur every year. Each one is a life changed in an instant, not just for the person injured, but for everyone who loves them.
To put it bluntly: you don’t need a cure for spinal cord injury, until you do.
Most of us move through life without giving it a moment’s thought. But for the thousands of Australians living with spinal cord injury right now, and for those of us who work alongside them, the question of whether a cure is coming, and how quickly, is not abstract. It is everything.
A global shift in science
Across the world, we are seeing advances that would have seemed unimaginable even a decade ago. Neuromodulation technologies are helping people regain movement. Brain-spine interfaces are beginning to reconnect disrupted signals. Researchers are learning much more about neural protection, regeneration, repair and the ability to reactivate existing neural pathways, while AI and adaptive technologies are helping accelerate progress.
This is no longer theoretical science confined to laboratories. Breakthroughs are moving into human trials, and researchers from entirely new disciplines are entering the field with passion and urgency.
The question we now face is whether funding of spinal cord injury cure research will keep pace. Will funding receive the same level of urgency being afforded the science, or will another generation of injured Australians be forced to spend decades more waiting?
History shows what can happen when science, belief and investment start moving in lock-step. Twenty years ago, advanced melanoma was widely viewed as a near-certain death sentence. Cure was considered unrealistic and unachievable. Then philanthropists and governments backed the researchers and outcomes changed dramatically.
Those of us in the spinal cord injury space feel like we are now at a similar tipping point.
At SpinalCure Australia, we are seeing growing momentum across the sector. International partners are investing in ambitious ideas. And critically, philanthropy and industry are increasingly recognising the potential of this work.
Will Australia seize the opportunity?
The big question for us is whether government investment, policy and focus can, and will, keep up. If policy leaders don’t show similar foresight, there is a real risk that Australia will fall behind at precisely the moment we should be accelerating.
Recent Federal Budget commitments around the Medical Research Future Fund may signal that the broader tide is beginning to turn for Australian medical research. The unknown is the degree of long-term inclusion for emerging fields like spinal cord injury cure research.
Research is already identifying meaningful ways to improve quality of life for people living with spinal cord injury. Yet too often these insights remain within the research community, never reaching the clinicians, patients and families who need them most. This gap between discovery and delivery is one of the most consequential, and most solvable, problems in the field.
What is needed though is not simply more funding, but a genuine partnership between government and the research community. Especially in a tighter fiscal environment, we need partnerships that bring strategic coherence to how cure-focused research is identified, prioritised and resourced at both a state and national level. Having philanthropic backing helps enormously to persuade government to prioritise funding spinal cord injury research.
In order to guide this, SpinalCure Australia has been working with researchers, clinicians, sector leaders and the community to develop Australia’s first National Roadmap toward a cure for spinal cord injury. The Roadmap sets out what the field dares to hope for, and the credible, coordinated pathway to get there. It gives government, philanthropy and the research community a shared vision to invest alongside, and makes the case for what sustained investment could actually achieve.
This is not just a scientific issue either. In 2019, SCI was estimated to cost the Australian economy $3.7 billion each year through healthcare, support services, lost productivity and lifelong care needs. This figure is closer to $5 billion today. Investment in cure research has the potential to reduce long-term pressure on systems like the NDIS, while profoundly improving lives.
What a cure really means
It is worth pausing to consider what a cure actually means in human terms. It means a father lifting his child. A woman showering and dressing herself in the morning. Sleeping through the night, managing your own bodily functions, feeling touch again and no longer being constantly in pain. For many people living with spinal cord injury, cure does not mean simply walking – it means reclaiming the thousands of small moments that make up a life.
Most importantly, this moment matters for people living with spinal cord injury who have been told meaningful recovery was impossible. No one can predict exactly where the biggest breakthroughs will come from. Some may emerge from technologies or disciplines that barely exist today and we believe it won’t come from one single innovation, but a combination of therapies. What is clear, however, is that the conversation has shifted, the evidence is building, and for the first time ever, the science shows a cure is possible, if the funding and focus is there.
The challenge now is ensuring Australia has the momentum, collaboration and long-term investment needed to drive this next chapter forward.
If you haven’t already, please consider giving this financial year. Your support will help us fund the research, build the infrastructure, and help make the case to state and Federal governments that Australia is ready to lead.
Thank you
Kathryn Borkovic
CEO, SpinalCure Australia