Injury to the brain or spinal cord affects nearly 2 million people in the United States each year, causing permanent functional disabilities including paraplegia, quadriplegia, and cognitive disorders. Bringing new treatments from the laboratory setting to patients requires an integrated effort among basic researchers, clinical researchers, and clinicians. With this in mind, the UCSF Brain and Spinal Injury Center (BASIC) was formed in 2002 to promote collaborative basic, translational, and clinical studies on injuries to the brain and spinal cord. BASIC is a joint effort between the Departments of Neurological Surgery and Neurology. Both departments bring their particular areas of expertise to a multidisciplinary effort centered on translational research.
 
With its headquarters at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), the only Level 1 Trauma Center in the City and County of San Francisco, BASIC provides a unique translational environment that emphasizes active collaboration among basic and clinical researchers and across disciplines and departments. BASIC laboratory facilities are located at both SFGH and the Parnassus campus. Collaborators at UC Berkeley studying biomechanics and cognitive neuroscience broaden the translational scope of BASIC. Much of the clinical work regarding intensive care monitoring and preclinical models of brain injury are done in conjunction with the San Francisco Injury Center (http://www.surgery.ucsf.edu/sfic), which is a designated Centers for Disease Control Injury Prevention Center. BASIC clinical research focuses on new ways of monitoring the brain after acute injury and the improved informatics necessary to advance this understanding.
 
Ongoing research by BASIC investigators is broadly funded by the NIH, CDC, NASA, the Brain Trauma Foundation, and the McDonnell Foundation. BASIC is currently undertaking major programmatic growth with active recruitments of basic and translational scientists taking place in both the Department of Neurological Surgery and the Department of Neurology.
 
BASIC Co-Directors:
Geoffrey T. Manley MD, PhD
 
Linda Noble PhD
 
J. Claude Hemphill III MD, MAS
 
BASIC Research Laboratories:
 
Michael Beattie PhD
Biology and preclinical models of neural injury
 
Donna Ferriero MD
Neonatal brain injury
 
John Fike PhD
Neurogenesis and traumatic brain injury
 
Jialing Liu PhD
Neurogenesis and functional recovery after stroke
 
Geoffrey Manley MD, PhD
Basic, translational, and clinical traumatic brain - injury research
 
Kenneth Monson PhD
Cerebral vessel function in traumatic brain injury
 
Linda Noble PhD
Traumatic brain and spinal cord injury - developing strategies to improve recovery
 
Scott Panter PhD
Cellular injury following stroke and hemoglobin-based neurological injury
 
Shirley Stiver MD, PhD
Cerebrovascular and traumatic central nervous system injury
 
Clinical Research:
Grant Gauger MD
 
J. Claude Hemphill III MD, MAS
Secondary brain injury in the ICU
 
Geoffrey Manley MD, PhD
Advanced monitoring after brain injury
 
Lawrence Pitts MD
 
Marco Sorani PhD
Bioinformatics
 
Shirley Stiver MD, PhD
 
Biomechanics:
Chris Ames MD
 
Ken Monson PhD