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Spinal Cord Breakthrough

Repairing spinal cord injuries

Led by regenerative engineering pioneer Samuel I. Stupp, Northwestern University researchers developed a new injectable therapy that reverses paralysis and repairs tissue after severe spinal cord injuries.

News story

Our team crafted an in-depth article and press release about the fundamental research that led to the new therapeutic breakthrough and dissected results from the animal study. It featured interviews with the lead researcher and members of his lab and was featured prominently on the Northwestern homepage and in the Northwestern Now bi-weekly newsletter.

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Read the story

Graphics

We worked with Prof. Stupp’s in-house designer to develop relevant graphics and animations to demonstrate how the therapy works in the human body. We also developed our own custom gifs to show mice from the study side-by-side, so viewers can see a mouse that received the treatment (walking) next to a control mouse (dragging its legs).

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Video

News release and multimedia press kit

We produced a full news release and interactive press kit, including b-roll, photos, animations, gifs, graphics and fully produced video. These assets were used by many media outlets all around the world – from the BBC and The Guardian in the UK to France24 and Agence France Presse in Paris as well as regional TV outlets in Japan, Sweden and South Africa.

See the IPK

News Coverage

We pitched the story to high-profile national and international reporters, including wire services, all of which resulted in 358 media mentions. The most prominent outlets to cover the story were:

UPI

U.S. News & World Report

The Independent

IFL Science

The Guardian

Reuters

France 24

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Further coverage was featured in:

  • BBC
  • NPR Science Friday
  • Agence France Presse
  • Scripps
  • CBC News
  • HealthDay
  • Daily Beast

Social Media

Our team shared the story on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram Stories. Our posts were accompanied with a social cut of the video that featured Prof. Stupp and a breakdown of the important discovery.

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Northwestern Magazine

Our team further built on this success by featuring the story as the anchor of the Discovery section in the Spring ’22 issue of Northwestern Magazine.

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Results

  • 358 media mentions
  • 18.3M estimated reach
  • Appeared on nearly 50 broadcast TV outlets in the U.S.
  • 71.6K video views
  • 214K story page views
  • 259.7K reached, 1.5K engagements, 34.8K video views across social media platforms