IT’S been two minutes and I’ve already got a nasty sweat up.

The carpet looked easy enough, but even my slight frame caused the wheelchair to dig in as if it was on soft sand, washing away any speed and wasting precious arm strokes.

Add in a dodgy front wheel that kept deciding left (usually towards the stairs) was the best direction and after 10 minutes of dodging desks, lift doors and walls, I was ready for a break.

Stem cell clinics promising costly cures for everything from Parkinson's disease to spinal cord injury grossly exaggerate the cells' benefits and gravely underestimate the potential risks, warn researchers.

The clinics, most of them in China, India and Latin America, solicit customers over the Internet and typically charge about $21,500 for treatments that infuse "stem cells" into the blood, brain or spine.

Those limits, and earlier laws, have left stem cell labs hungering for support since the versatile human stem cells were first derived in 1998.

Thrill-Seeker Has Led ‘Wonderfully Fulfilling Life’ Since Accident

An Ashville native and self-described thrill-seeker, Ms. Hovey says she has lived her life on the edge - though bound to a wheelchair for the last 50 years by quadriplegia.

''That's always been my personality,'' Ms. Hovey said with a laugh from her home in Vienna, Va. ''I've always thought that if you were to take a whole bunch of spinal-cord injured parapalegics and quadriplegics and then did a poll, you would find they're a bunch of crazy thrill-seekers - and that's why they broke their backs and necks in the first place. Like me, it's probably what they keep on doing.''

Darsey donated $40,000 this week to the Myron Wright Foundation, whose 22-year-old namesake suffered a spinal-cord injury while playing football for Thibodaux High in 2002.

Darsey died Wednesday morning of natural causes, his great-niece, Diane Baker, said.

Six weeks after injecting cells from the human nose (olfactory ensheathing glia) into the injured spinal cords of rats, the researchers found improvements in the animals' movement.

"We found improvements in hind limb function of these animals," said Dr Catherine Gorrie, from the Neural Injury Research Unit at UNSW. "They performed significantly better on locomotive tasks than those who didn't have the injections."

People paralysed by spinal cord injuries could soon be "repaired" using cells from their own noses, say Otago University researchers.

The Health Ministry's ethics committee has just approved an application by the Spinal Cord Society to open the way for a clinical trial involving 12 patients, which could start next year.

The society's president, Noela Vallis, said there was no shortage of volunteers ready to take part.

Seven days after his 20th birthday in February 2005 Shane was injured in an off road motorbike accident.

He was unconscious for the next month as worried family and friends hoped he would pull through,

New Zealand to join spinal cord repair effort

New Zealand has 5000 people in wheelchairs – one of the highest per capita ratios in the developed World

Advances towards breakthrough treatments for spinal cord injuries has encouraged the start of a fundraising initiative in New Zealand.

“We Will Walk Again,” will be a special  arm of the Spinal Cord Society of New Zealand to focus on raising money so New Zealanders in wheelchairs can take part in trials of experimental (or novel) treatments from local medical specialists.

Former Forest City resident remains hopeful for son's full recovery

Craig Olson saw the time that his mother had called on that fateful September night and knew something wasn't right.

It wasn't. His son, Tyler, had suffered a spinal cord injury on the first play of a game between Lake Mills and Forest City. The date was Sept. 5. The time of the phone call was 8 p.m. And life had forever changed.

The Michael-Ryan Pattison Foundation, formerly A Cure is Coming, is the legacy of the inspirational effort of a healing community of friends who supported Woodinville resident Michael-Ryan Pattison and his family following his paralyzing injury in 2005. Pattison is convinced that the fact that he is alive today is directly related to his friends’ commitment.

He says, “I was graced to have a supportive community embrace me when this tragedy occurred, but there are many others who do not. The Michael-Ryan Pattison Foundation was created for them and it’s our mission to improve the quality of life for children and adults who become suddenly disabled, as I did.”

The Blusson Spinal Cord Centre at Vancouver General Hospital will have more than 300 researchers looking for new ways to treat spinal injuries and providing outpatient care.

Hansen says staff at the centre will work to improve the lives of spinal cord patients and move the world closer to a cure.

19 honored in ceremony Monday

Three of this year's 19 inductees into the Spinal Cord Injury Hall of Fame have Lowcountry connections.

Dr. James S. Krause, scientific director of the South Carolina Spinal Cord Injury Research Fund, was among those honored Monday. The research fund is financed through $100 surcharges attached to DUI convictions.

AUSTRALIA's bionic ear experts may hold the key to perfecting a technique that will allow paraplegics to walk again.

A Canadian researcher has been working for 15 years on bionic implants that use electrical signals to command "lifeless" limbs to stand and walk.

The University of Alberta's Dr Vivian Mushahwar, who arrived in Melbourne yesterday, said her work had been proven in animals and she was about three years from human trials.

For Jeff Snover, while on military leave from serving in Iraq, was soaking up time with his family and getting a head start on some work that needed to be done on his property in Tennessee. But, while clearing out an area on his land, a tree fell, trapping him and causing a spinal cord injury, paralyzing him from the waist down.

A FEW years ago researchers found a way to create a remotely controlled on-off switch in a neuron by inserting a light-sensitive gene into the nerve cell. Now the same technique has been used experimentally in laboratory rats in a study that could help with spinal-cord injuries.

When the spinal cord is severed instructions being sent from the brain are interrupted. This means not just the loss of the ability to move limbs, but also impairment of the up and down movement of the diaphragm too. This leaves patients unable to breathe on their own and often causes death.

Scott Cannedy receives veteran appreciation plaque from Jackson Center for Independent Living

Scott Cannedy was on a secret mission with the Green Berets in 1985 when he suffered a spinal cord injury that paralyzed him for life.

Cannedy describes himself as a "C3-C4 quadriplegic," which means his spinal cord was damaged at the third vertebrae. He can only shrug his shoulders and move his head. He uses his chin to steer his motorized wheelchair and has to have help to eat, shower and dress.

Obama himself has signaled, for example, that he intends to reverse Bush's controversial limit on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, a decision that scientists say has restrained research into some of the most promising avenues for defeating a wide array of diseases such as Parkinson's. Bush's August 2001 decision pleased religious conservatives who have moral objections to the use of cells from days-old human embryos, which are destroyed in the process.

TWO women are swimming the width of the English Channel to raise money for a spinal cord injuries charity.

Fiona Conyers and Eleanor Coultish are among thousands of swimmers across the country who have embarked on an epic challenge to swim the 22-mile distance of the channel in their local swimming pools.

The Aspire Channel Swim, now in its ninth year, is the UK’s largest annual sponsored swimming event.

The award is presented annually to the top-ranked spinal cord researcher in Canada, identified by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). It was initiated in 2001 by well-known Toronto journalist and research activist Barbara Turnbull, who, at the age of 18, was shot and paralyzed from the neck down during a convenience store robbery.

A GRANDAD died after six doctors at two hospitals failed to spot he had broken his spine.

Neville Caplan, 70, could have been saved if he’d had surgery in the three weeks before his death.

The retired pastry chef from Prestwich – described as ‘fit and healthy’  – fell while babysitting.

Michael Box, was left with a snapped vertebrae and severed spinal cord from a wrestling accident. This photo shows him in the Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto in December 2007.

The statement of claim filed by the Box family alleges negligence on behalf of the defendants. The claims have not been proven in court, but include allegations that Michael Box was moved after he sustained his injury during the wrestling match.

Every 41 minutes someone sustains a spinal cord injury. Almost half of these injuries are due to motor vehicle crashes, followed by the next most common cause, falls. The majority of those affected are males between the ages of 16 and 30. One minute they’re leading active, independent lives and the next, they’re paralyzed, confined to a wheelchair and destined to a sedentary existence.

Such was the fate of Allan Northrup. Seven years ago, the Eastside man was in a car accident off of I-90 on Thanksgiving weekend. He sustained a C7-T1 spinal cord injury and ended up with a metal plate in his back to realign his spine. He spent two months in rehab and eventually learned how to transfer himself from his bed to his wheelchair.

The Reeve Foundation debuts new national ad campaign giving consumers a look into the world of paralysis