ICORD Director Dr. John Steeves with former Research Associate Dr. Gordon Hiebert in the late 1990s.
history
CORD (Collaboration On Repair Discoveries) was founded in 1995 by Dr. John Steeves with the support of Rick Hansen and then-UBC President Dr. David Strangway. That year, the Rick Hansen Man-in-Motion Chair in Spinal Cord Research was created, and a search was initiated for the first chair holder. Dr. Wolfram Tetzlaff was the successful candidate, and he joined Dr. Steeves and a small group of UBC / VCH researchers with an interest in spinal cord injury (SCI) known as CORD. Membership in CORD grew steadily, with 15 members in 2000.
In 2002, Dr. Steeves and his CORD colleagues were awarded a Canada Foundation for Innovation infrastructure award of $12.8 million. The CFI award was matched by the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund, and additional funding was pledged by UBC, Vancouver Coastal Health and the Rick Hansen Foundation to provide for the construction of a dedicated SCI research centre.
CORD’s vision and mandate became much broader than a regional research centre, and the research group was renamed ICORD–with the “I” standing for “international”.
ICORD’s administrative office and some basic science research labs were located in the Biosciences Building at the UBC Point Grey Campus. Other ICORD researchers were based at more than twenty different locations in Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island (in other buildings at the UBC campus, at the VGH campus, at BCIT, SFU, UVIC).
ICORD today
Since the CFI award in 2002, researchers with an interest in SCI from more UBC departments and other institutions have joined ICORD, attracted by the available infrastructure and multidisciplinary research community.
Currently, a wide array of researchers (including principal investigators , trainees, technicians, and staff) are joined under the banner of ICORD to foster and maintain an interdisciplinary, collaborative research and training environment.
The audience at the grand opening of the Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, November 18, 2008.
The programs bring together researchers and practitioners from the basic sciences, social sciences, medicine, surgery, rehabilitation, engineering, kinesiology, education, and the humanities to facilitate the discovery, development and implementation of relevant solutions that will make a difference for people with spinal cord injury today and tomorrow.
With the opening of the Blusson Spinal Cord Centre in November, 2008, ICORD’s multidisciplinary researchers are together under one roof where they can work closely with each other and with people spinal cord injuries. This will accelerate the discovery, development and validation of therapies and practices to promote full functional recovery and improved quality of life after spinal cord injury. The building is named after Dr. Stewart and Marilyn Blusson in recognition of their generous donation to the Rick Hansen Foundation in support of this new building, which also houses VCH’s Brenda and David McLean Integrated Spine Clinic, and the Rick Hansen Institute.
research
click here for more information about ICORD Research and ICORD’s Researchers
