Our team of medical professionals, scientists and business leaders wants to help patients regain lost function and avoid long-term paralysis. We use an injectable, shape-conforming gel formulation with magnetically aligning nanoparticles to create a fiber scaffold in the injury site in order to stimulate and guide axonal regrowth. Axons are like electrical cables that connect neurons in the brain and spinal cord. If an axon is damaged or cut due to a spinal cord injury, the electrical transmission is lost, resulting in loss of control (motion, bladder, bowel, sexual function) and sensation (feeling, pain, position).
NeuroPair’s innovation won the Grand Prize of the “Create the Future” competition from over 500 entries worldwide:
https://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/51297-neuropair-a-new-treatment-approach-for-spinal-cord-injury
https://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/49748-heres-an-idea-a-new-minimally-invasive-approach-to-spinal-cord-injury
NEWS – November 14, 2025:
Dr. Eve Tsai, MD/PhD at The Ottawa Hospital, her collaborator Dr. Michael Hildebrand of Carleton University and NeuroPair were awarded Phase II funding for their joint project “Test of an Injectable Magnetic Particle Scaffold with Neural Stem Progenitor Cells in a Human Injured Spinal Cord Explant” by the Morton Cure Paralysis Fund. The project will utilize NeuroPair’s Fibermag® RUO formulation as a form-fitting bio-fiber scaffold.
The injectable implant could bridge the gap across an injury site parallel to the natural direction of uninjured axons, directing axon regrowth, regenerating properly aligned synaptic connections, and restoring spinal cord functionality. To do this, Dr. Tsai’s group uses human neural stem/progenitor cells and ‘live’ human spinal cord explants as treatment models for spinal cord injury. The Tsai lab has pioneered techniques to extract those from organ donor patients, providing highly representative human cell model systems for material testing. These can greatly reduce the need for animal testing while providing significantly more relevant preclinical data, thereby reducing the cost, duration and risk of failure of later clinical trials, when compared to animal models.
Drs. Tsai and Hildebrand measure neuronal synaptic reconnections by electrophysiological analysis, which can include electrical stimulation very similar to recent research that resulted in successful functional recovery in humans. This means we can mimic the conditions that have been shown to generate functional reconnections and then determine if the presence of our Fibermag® treatment will further improve those results.
NeuroPair also gratefully acknowledges support by the New Jersey Commission on Science, Innovation and Technology (NJCSIT) and New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), the Department of Defense’s AFWERX program, the Morton Cure Paralysis Fund, and by its investors, philanthropic donors and advisors.