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The Hunt for a Breakthrough – Inside Spinal Cord Injury Research
What does it take to find a cure for spinal cord injury? Discover how spinal cord injury research works, why scar tissue blocks recovery, and how scientists are pushing toward a future cure.
Imagine losing control over your body in a single moment. And knowing there’s no cure.
That’s the reality for up to half a million people every year after a spinal cord injury. Life changes instantly, and not just physically.
“If you take five minutes to really think about what spinal cord injury means, you understand how life-changing it is,” says Christian Göritz, researcher at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden.
“People sometimes try spending a day in a wheelchair. It gives some insight. But spinal cord injury goes far beyond physical limitations. It affects independence, decision-making, and control over everyday life.”
Christian has spent more than 20 years researching spinal cord injuries. Today, he leads a project focused on one of the biggest barriers to recovery: scar tissue that forms in the spinal cord after injury. It’s complex science but the goal is simple: finding better ways to heal.
Christian Görtiz is a researcher and Wings for Life World Run runner
© Isak Tell
This story explores what happens after a spinal cord injury, why scar tissue blocks recovery, and how researchers are working to change the healing process to find a cure for spinal cord injury.
Want to be part of the solution? By joining the Wings for Life World Run on May 10 2026, you’re directly funding spinal cord injury research. Run, walk, or roll and 100% of your entry fee goes to science working toward a cure.
01
What actually happens when the spinal cord is injured?
A spinal cord injury (SCI) is damage to the spinal cord that disrupts communication between the brain and the rest of the body.
Simply put, the spinal cord is a bundle of nerves running down your back. It carries signals for movement, sensation, and vital functions like breathing and bladder control. When it’s injured, those signals can be partially or completely blocked, often resulting in paralysis below the level of injury.
Tobias Forsberg injured his spinal cord in a professional ice hockey game
© Christopher Lanaway for Wings for Life World Run
02
Scar tissue blocks recovery
Why does this “block” happen? Christian explains:
“Everyone knows about scar formation. If you cut yourself deeply, the healed skin doesn’t look the same after healing. That difference is scar tissue.”
The same process happens in the spinal cord. After injury, the body tries to heal but the scar tissue that forms becomes a problem.
“On the skin, a scar might not look great, but the skin still works. In the spinal cord, scar tissue becomes a barrier and prevents damaged nerves from regrowing and reconnecting.”
This barrier, the fibrotic scar tissue, is exactly what Christian’s research team is targeting. “To restore function, that barrier needs to be overcome.”
Christian and his team are trying to alter the healing process
© Isak Tell
03
The breakthrough scientists are chasing right now
Scar tissue isn’t a new concept. But in spinal cord injury research, focusing on it is relatively new.
“For a long time, researchers focused on the outer edge of the scar, the reactive astrocytes, because that’s what regrowing nerves encounter first after injury,” Christian explains.
Over time, however, it’s become clear that astrocytes can actually have beneficial role, and the scar tissue behind is the big barrier – and it can be up to two centimetres thick.
Focusing only on the outer layer is abit like: “studying the paint on a wall for 100 years while ignoring the concrete behind it.”
Focusing only on the outer layer is abit like: “studying the paint on a wall for 100 years while ignoring the concrete behind it.”
That insight shifted Christian’s focus to the fibrotic scar itself: where it comes from, how it forms and how it might be changed while the body is healing.
“We start by identifying which cells are involved in the healing process, which biological pathways are active, and at what time,” Christian explains. “Then we ask a simple question: can we intervene?”
To do that, the team looks for a specific molecule in one of those pathways: a so-called target. They then develop a drug designed to affect that target and test whether it can change how the scar forms.
More Stories from the Wings For Life World Run
04
Why new spinal cord injuries are easier to treat
This approach is, hopefully, an important stepping stone toward manipulating scar tissue in people who are newly injured. When it comes to older injuries, it becomes much more difficult and would require a completely different approach.
Christian explains:
“If construction workers start building a wall across a street and you catch them early, you can stop it by removing stones, calling the boss, changing the plan, etc. Once the wall is solid, you need a bulldozer - and even then, people have already stopped using the road.”
The same applies to nerve pathways in spinal cord injury.
“Ideally, I would work on both new and old injuries,” Christian says. “But realistically, that depends on resources and continuous funding.”
If construction workers start building a wall across a street and you catch them early, you can stop it. Howver, once the wall is solid, you need a bulldozer.
Be part of the solution - join the Wings for Life World Run!
© Emrik Jansson for Wings for Life World Run
05
Why funding and collaboration are essential
Finding a cure for spinal cord injury is like solving a massive puzzle. There’s no single solution. Injury levels vary. Severity differs. Outcomes are unpredictable.
And unlike an infection, where you eliminate a pathogen, spinal cord injury requires rebuilding damaged tissue: modifying scar tissue, regrowing axons, and reconnecting them correctly.
“That’s why we collaborate across the globe,” Christian says. “There’s no single breakthrough that fixes everything. Progress happens step by step, when different pieces of research come together. My research won’t solve everything, but if it helps unlock one piece of the puzzle, it matters.”
Those important pieces also balance on a thin thread, called funding.
If there is a temporary lack of funding it has a big impact on the research: “I might have to let trained people go. When funding returns, that expertise is already gone. And it’s not something you just go find on the streets – it takes years to retrain someone”.
06
Why the Wings for Life World Run is important
That’s why long-term funding and collaboration matter so much in spinal cord injury research, and why events like the Wings for Life World Run are more than symbolic. They are vital.
“I run every year,” Christian says. “Lately with my colleagues in Stockholm at the App Run around Djurgården. We call ourselves the Scar Sprinters.”
Run as far as you like, you set your own pace!
© Christopher Lanaway for Wings for Life World Run
Sanni Hakala & HV71 with the crew at the App Run in Jönköping 2025
© HV71
Christian and his team are ready for the World Run on May 10th!
© Isak Tell
He laughs but the comparison is serious. “Research is a lot like the World Run. It’s ambitious. It’s demanding. Some phases are really tough. But you keep going because the end goal matters.”
And that end goal is very clear. This is a global effort, and it is making progress. Christian says: “We’re starting to see technologies that work in humans. We’re not at the finish line - but we’re closer than we’ve ever been.”
And getting there depends on all of us staying in the race.
See you on the startline on May 10th!
What is the Wings For Life World Run?
