Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Mar. 3--In 1966 a boy with what he thought was an unloaded shotgun took aim and fired at a passing cyclist.
The 13-year-old victim survived, but he was paralyzed from the waist down. One kidney was destroyed, the other damaged.
"What are you going to do to treat him?" Claire Hulsebosch, then 15, demanded of doctors after her brother's injuries had healed. Shouldn't they try to help Lenny walk?
"There's nothing we can do," they told her.
Flash forward almost 40 years. It's a Sunday afternoon in August 2004, and Hulsebosch is at home, resting from the rigors of the week. She's a scientist and professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and her specialty is spinal cord and brain injuries.
Aside from her husband and two children, her work is her passion.
The phone rings. She listens for a moment.
Her brother Howard has fallen off a 10-foot ladder at his hunting lease. He has no feeling from his waist down.
"This time," she tells herself, "I can help."
Hulsebosch is one of the founders and the new director of Mission Connect, a group of local scientists and clinicians pushing the treatment frontier for spinal cord and brain injury and stroke patients. Recently she made time to answer questions from Chronicle writer Claudia Feldman about work and family.
Q: It's been two years. How is Howard?
A: He's able to move his legs. He's able to bring up his feet and walk with support.
Q: How is that possible? After Lenny had his accident, he was confined to a wheelchair.
A: In 40 years we've learned a lot. Within hours after his injury, Howard began what would be a 10-month course of anti-inflammatory drugs and vitamin E. He had surgery to stabilize his spinal cord quickly -- within eight hours. And as soon as he was able, he started aggressive physical therapy to regain as much movement as possible. It was as if he were training for the Olympics.
Q: What happened to Lenny?
A: He died at the age of 43. That far exceeded the prognosis at the time, and for that we were grateful. And he made the most of the time that he had. He started wheelchair basketball in Houston. If you think about it, most people with spinal injuries are very active. You don't get injured sitting at a desk.
Q: When did you settle on a career in research?
A: After Lenny was hurt, I thought I'd go into education and inspire young people to become researchers. Then I went to Rice University, interacted with the intellectual elites in their fields, and I realized I was just as smart as they were. At the time, women weren't encouraged to go into science and math. One professor told me I was wasting my time. Another told me girls don't make good graduate students. I was shocked. I don't agree.
Q: You got your Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. What ideas were floating around the lecture halls and labs at the time?
A: Professors there were exploring the notion that you can retrain the brain, that one part can assume a new function after an injury. That was a very new idea. I also wanted to see how spinal cords can change after injury. I'm still trying to figure out why two people can have very similar injuries but one will make an amazing recovery and one won't.
Q: As the spinal cord tries to heal itself after an injury, what grows back first?
A: Unfortunately, the pain fibers. Now we have to discover ways to control that growth.
Q: You've been working on some of these issues almost 30 years. What is one development that is particularly interesting?
A: After an injury, the cells around the trauma also are at risk of dying. Think of it like this -- the injury itself sets off a chemical hurricane. Border towns -- or surrounding cells -- have to be protected. It's best to do that within the first hour after injury. If that's not possible, and it's usually not, doctors can still offer protection later. We and others are interested in anti-inflammatory intervention. Lenny didn't get the benefit of that. Howard did.
Q: Do all the Mission Connect projects focus on the spinal cord?
A: No. I've learned that people in wheelchairs are more devastated by their lack of bladder, bowel and sexual function than the fact that they can't walk. Through Mission Connect, we've been doing experiments with sheep to try to restore bladder function, and now we're working with rats, too. ... The experiments are easier to control.
Q: There are a number of programs around the country focusing on spinal cord injuries. What's different about Mission Connect?
A: Scientists are used to keeping ideas a secret. Our scientists work together. They collaborate. Their institutions work together, too. And we have no indirect costs. With most grants, the universities the scientists represent take a certain percent. With Mission Connect, all the money goes directly to research. The universities get their money when the researchers continue to develop their projects and apply for larger federal grants.
Q: So Mission Connect scientists don't compete with one another. Are all of you, as a group, competing against spinal cord investigators around the country and around the world?
A: No. The nervous system is extremely complex. No one person, no one group, will solve all the mysteries.
Q: What research avenues are particularly promising?
A: Stem cells, which would repair the damaged cord. And brain and spinal cord regeneration, that's self-explanatory. We're trying to dissolve scar tissue. And we're looking at vascular dysfunction, or secondary cell death. We used to think the problems were confined to the lesion site. Now we know they spread up and down the spinal cord.
Q: You talk about Mission Connect progressing in phases. What phase are you in now?
A: Phase 2. Phase 1 was collecting the core group of scientists and clinicians and getting a strong working relationship between their five institutions -- TIRR (The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research), Baylor College of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center, University of Texas Medical Branch and Texas A&M's Institute of Biosciences and Technology.
Now we're trying to raise money -- $33 million in all. Phase 3 is coming fast -- that's bringing the application of our findings into the clinic.
Q: Lenny was only 43 when he died. What happened to him?
A: Cardiac complications. But he lived for more than 20 years after the accident, and my family is very grateful for that. While he was alive, he was an athlete. His wheelchair didn't change that.
Q: How does Howard evaluate his progress?
A: He's walking with a walker. But he's still not able to walk up stairs, and he doesn't have bladder or bowel function. He's told me he feels lucky when he's at TIRR, but when he's out in the real world he doesn't feel so lucky anymore.
claudia.feldman@chron.com
-----
Copyright (c) 2006, Houston Chronicle
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.
