Bright sparks: New tech bringing fresh hope for spinal cord injuries

Spinal cord injury is devastating for many New Zealanders and their whānau but work at the University of Auckland is offering new hope. Dr Bruce Harland is leading the development and testing of an ultra-thin implant that can be applied to the injury to monitor the spinal cord’s electrical activity and act as a platform to deliver treatments. Dr Harland and his team have developed this technology with the help of a Neurological Foundation Project. They are now poised to test an exciting electrical stimulation treatment aimed at re-growing nerve fibres across the injury.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Bruce Harland completed a PhD at University of Canterbury in 2013 then spent five years at the Universities of Edinburgh and Arizona learning to build and implant devices to record brain activity in rats. Now a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Auckland, Bruce applies these skills to record electrical activity along the injured spinal cord and develop new treatments.