nsif is a small UK-based charity taking on a global problem: paralysis through spinal injury.

There are an estimated 40,000 people living with spinal injury in the UK today. Spinal injury is more than losing the use of your legs, it can mean the loss of privacy and independence, not to mention a host of side effects which are at best debilitating and at worst fatal.

We believe that the answer to curing spinal injury lies in the sense of smell. It’s the only system in the body that regenerates throughout a person’s life. The cells involved are called Olfactory Ensheathing Cells (OEC).

In 2014 the BBC revealed that Darek Fidyka, the first patient to receive the ground-breaking OEC transplant procedure, had recovered some movement and sensation below the site of his injury, a world first. This was the result of a lifetime of research carried out by Prof. Geoffrey Raisman, implemented by the Walk Again team under the instruction of Dr. Pawel Tabakow.

We are now committed to funding two more patients through this project as well as the continuing laboratory work carried out by Prof. Geoffrey Raisman’s team at UCL Institute of Neurology.