Miami Project to Cure Paralysis Pioneers Cooling After Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal cord trauma and spine injury lawyer Doug Landau proudly sports the green and orange of "The U" at his 25th reunion at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida

The University of Miami is frequently at the cutting edge of advances in medical research, especially accidental spinal cord injury and paralysis. As an alum of “the U” and a lifelong follower of spinal cord research, Doug Landau returns to Miami this week for Continuing Legal Education and to learn of the latest in advances in medicine that might help his injured and disabled clients from all over the country. The Virginia spine injury lawyer’s first real job was in fact at the Columbia Presbyterian Neurological Institute in New York City in the 1970s.

Lawyer Landau, of the ABRAMS LANDAU Herndon law firm, noted the recent peer-reviewed publication of research findings by his alma mater in Coral Gables, Florida. A team led by Allan Levi, professor of neurological surgery, clinical researcher at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, and chief of Jackson Memorial Hospital’s neurospine service, published findings in the journal NEUROSURGERY supporting the use of mild hypothermia in acute spinal cord injury. An earlier manuscript by Levi and colleagues in the Journal of Neurotrauma addressed techniques and time frames for the procedure. Much of the pre-clinical investigative data, pioneered by Miami Project and Miller School researchers, shows systemic intravascular cooling is safe and can decrease severity of injury. So far UM/Jackson Memorial Medical Center is the world’s only institution conducting regimented hypothermia treatment and follow-up for acute spinal cord injuries.