From left, Janet Rasmussen, Will Ambler and Dr. Tony Howe form a successful team, determined to help Ambler, and others with spinal cord injury, walk again.

A group of supporters and Ambler sell raffle tickets at Danish Days for a Ford 150 pick-up, as part of a recent successful fundraiser for the SCI foundation.

Will Ambler was an active 24-year-old in 1992, when a motorcycle accident paralyzed him from the waist down. "I don't remember the accident," says Ambler, "or anything else that happened for the next three weeks." During his eight weeks in the Santa Barbara Rehabilitation Hospital, Ambler was told that the damage to his bruised spinal cord was permanent and he'd have to spend rest of his life in a wheelchair. But he refused to believe he'd never walk again. "It didn't make sense to me. I've had bruises before. How can a bruise mean that half your body won't work?"

When he was released from the hospital he began a massive research campaign to find out what different foundations for spinal cord injuries were doing to find a cure. "I learned all the medical terms so I could converse with researchers," says Ambler, who lives with his parents in Janin Acres.

When Ambler came across a letter from a renowned neuroscientist, Dr. Wise Young, proposing two different treatments for spinal cord injury that could produce a cure by the end of the past decade, he found hope that he'd one day walk again. The fact that the decade ended without manifesting the proposed cure does not invalidate Dr. Young's proposal. According to Ambler, "It only means that there's a lack of incentive in the research industry as a whole."

Ambler came up with his own solution; he formed SCI Research Advancement, a Santa Ynez Valley based foundation. The foundation's goal is to raise $260,000, which will pay a doctor and a research team to put together a protocol to repair spinal cord damage in a private lab. If the animal test results are favorable, human testing could begin in the summer of '02. Ambler has offered to be the first human test subject. Valley support for Ambler's foundation has been enthusiastic.

A fundraiser at the Solvang Veteran's Hall, featuring five musical acts, dinner, and a raffled truck from Vreeland Ford, added $30,000 to the non-profit fund, raising the total to $50,000. Ambler gets local support from pediatrician Dr. Tony Howe, whose wife Dr. Janet Howe suffered nerve damage from a stroke, and could benefit from the research. Fellow paraplegics Ben Bettancourt, and Michelle Pflum are also active foundation supporters.

"Our goal is to regenerate brain and spinal cord nerves which will benefit not only people with spinal cord injuries, but people with Parkinsons, Alzheimers, Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's Disease and brain injuries resulting from strokes and head trauma."

Ambler's neighbor, Janet Rasmussen, is one of Ambler's most enthusiastic supporters. Rasmussen had seen Ambler around town, driving the red '67 Firebird that he restored, and she stopped him on the street one day, to talk about his research. Rasmussen's nephew, Matt Larquier, had suffered a spinal cord injury at age 18 in a surfing accident and she was intrigued by the news of a possible cure.

"I'd heard that Will founded SCI Research Advancement," says Rasmussen, who owns and manages Nathalie's Doll House. "And I'd seen him in his hot convertible. You'd never know he was driving only with his hands." Rasmussen quickly offered to help spread the word about Ambler's foundation. "Will helped me understand my nephew's condition, and now have a hope that there is a cure in sight. This isn't just scientific research. Will's approach involves a personal commitment and a personal association with a Los Angeles doctor and a research facility." Ambler and Dr. Michael Levesque have entered into a contractual agreement so that the funds raised will go primarily towards pre-clinical studies, designed specifically for human trials rather than for pure research.

How can spinal cord injuries be cured? Research over the past century has suggested that lost cell tissue can be replaced, and that drugs can stimulate the growth of that cell area once that area has been patched to reconnect damaged nerves.

"Those projects have taken place, but now we need to know how to put these pieces of information together to repair the spinal cord," says Ambler. "The scientific community is still studying basic, versus applied research. We put together a team that will do more than that. The FDA has to respond to a request to do spinal procedure research within 60 days, as long as you have the animal data to back it up."

Ambler's foundation will receive reports from the research team working out of a private lab near Cedar Sinai in Los Angeles. "That gives our group here accountability and control. We don't want to raise dollars and let a team of doctors do what they want. We are demanding a cure, and we'll get it, by paying for the research.

Once the lab is assembled and operational, the correct cell groups will be harvested and cultured, test animals will be secured and by February, the foundation will have its preliminary research results.

Valley support for Amber's foundation has been enthusiastic and he credits the many local people whose belief in his ultimate recovery has helped him raise funds for the crucial research project.

Fundraising is critical, but Ambler points out that "we're not looking for continued funds beyond the $260,000 goal. We want to get people to walk again. Once everyone is out of their wheelchairs, they have other lives to jump into."

Can spinal cord injury be repaired?

Will Ambler had been researching possible ways to restore spinal cord function for two years after the accident that paralyzed him, when Father Chuck Stacy introduced him to Dr. Tony Howe. The local pediatrician was inspired by Ambler's research, and has since helped him to develop his own research protocol, which led Ambler to Dr. Michael Levesque, a neurosurgeon and research scientist at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. Dr. Levesque recently agreed to implement a plan using Ambler's own research protocol to reconstitute his spinal cord function.

Stem cells, and substances that foster nerve growth and differentiation, are key factors in Ambler's hope for a cure. "The stemcells involved in this research are not harvested from embryos," says Dr. Howe. "People who oppose stem cell research for religious reasons have no reason to oppose Will's research."

He describes the harvesting process; nerve cells harvested from the ependyma, or outer area of Ambler's brain, can be grown in tissue culture. "Various factors introduced into the culture causes the cells to revert to stem cell state."

Nerve growth can be restored by two groups of chemically-derived neurotrophic factors, imminophyllins and para-benzoic acid, or PABA, analogs. When the stem cells are emplaced in Ambler's spinal canal, "with one or more other neurotrophic factors," says Dr. Howe, "they will differentiate into mature, functional, bridging nerves equivalent to the ones that were lost."

Also, artificial, biologically inert longitudinal tunnels, similar to that used for a heart valve, will be emplaced, "to guide the new, connecting nerve's growth from the upper motor and sensory nerve tracts above the injury, to the lower motor and sensory tracts and peripheral nerves at and below the area of injury."

Ambler is currently raising funds to complete preliminary tests at Cedars-Sinai. If those test results are favorable, he will be the recipient of the next procedure. He has already undergone interval surgery to remove fibrous elements that were obstructing his spinal cord since the time of the initial trauma, in preparation for the next procedure at Cedars-Sinai.

The problems that Ambler faces in getting his research funding is not, according to Dr. Howe, because the research is invalid but because of the nature of the research industry. "In medical science, you get money for ongoing research projects, and nerve injury/repair studies will address Alzheimer's and Parkinsons before they get to spinal cord injury. These priorities are established by the drug companies according to which disease entities represent the largest population. In terms of experimenting on a human subject, if you want to raise money, you have to take the initiative yourself.

Dr. Howe believes there is a chance that Ambler could walk again. "There have already been successful test studies in rats whose spinal cords were severed, " he notes, adding that rats, "are excellent test animals to address nerve injury/repair because 90% of their genes are the same as ours, and reconstitution of nerve injury will occur with the same medicines and procedures." Test animals that were subjected to tests similar to what Ambler hopes to undergo are walking again.

Whether or not Ambler will walk again is "a gamble based on an animal model," says Dr. Howe. "And its a good model. It's hard for people to understand why research money is not readily available but its even harder for a young man to wait in a queue. Will wants to walk again while he's still a young man."