Dr Ryan O'Hare Doig

Adelaide, South Australia has established a powerful reputation for research collaboration and has assembled a cohort of experts in spinal cord injury. The Neil Sachse Centre for Spinal Cord Research manages a set of complex university and industry partnerships, which are critical for success in research and innovation. Their research is focussed on innovation in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure. Dr O’Hare Doig and Ms. Jenkner are early career researchers, dedicated to this research and critical contributors to the research team, with their novel, high throughput and impactful work. They have successfully built collaborations both locally and internationally during their respective times in the research group, and their knowledge and growing suite of technical skills is an asset to the Centre.

Dr O’Hare Doig and Ms. Jenkner received a 2021 SCI Collaboration Grant to attend ISCoS 2021:Virtual.

• Dr Ryan O’Hare Doig, Researcher, Neil Sachse Centre for Spinal Cord Research, Australia
• Sandra Jenkner, PhD candidate, Neil Sachse Centre for Spinal Cord Research, Australia

L-R: Ryan O’Hare Doig, Sandra Jenkner

Ryan and Sandra share their experiences from the conference.

“Thanks to the Spinal Research Institute Research Collaboration Grant, we were privileged to  attend the 60th International Spinal Cord Society (ISCoS) Annual Scientific Meeting. This  provided members of the Neil Sachse Centre for Spinal Cord Research the opportunity to meet  our fellow grant recipients and learn of the breadth of consumer engagement and high-quality  research being conducted all over the globe. Most importantly, we were able to ‘e-mingle’ with  some of the world’s best spinal cord injury experts over the 4 days thanks to the amazing virtual  platform provided by vFairs. We all know this was much needed following the extended break in  conference schedules (even if at 3 o’clock in the morning!).

ISCoS was also the first opportunity for one of our newest PhD students, Sandra Jenkner, to  attend a spinal cord-specific conference, which supported an interactive, deep dive into the  wealth of spinal cord injury knowledge, integral for a well-grounded and successful start to an  early career researcher. Sandra also noted that one of her many highlights of ISCoS was  listening to the North American juggernauts of spinal cord injury research (Dr. Michael Fehlings,  Dr. Charles Tator, Dr. Brian Kwon) speak about their research, for the first time.

Our attendance, with thanks to the SRI, has led to a number of professional contacts, which we  endeavour to pursue in the future for potential collaborations or further post-doctoral  opportunities. This has already led to new experiments being hypothesised in our lab to apply  our group research program to additional areas of research, including non-traumatic spinal cord  injury, bone health and secondary co-morbidities. Of importance, we recognised the amazing  opportunity to collaborate with Praxis Spinal Cord Injury Institute and their international Biobank  initiative (led by Dr. Brian Kwon) to help advance our understanding of the biology of SCI, and to  supplement and strengthen our own research platform.”