2024 Apple Award – Call for Nominations!
The ASIA Awards Committee requests nominations for the 2024 Apple Award.
The Apple Award for excellence in publishing in spinal cord injury rehabilitation literature is presented annually during the ASIA annual scientific meeting in recognition of the best-published paper by a clinician or researcher in the preceding calendar year. Nominations will be accepted from the field for articles that address clinical or basic science research in spinal cord medicine.
The Apple Award is named in honor of David F. Apple, Jr., MD, founding member and past-president of the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA). The award is a collaboration of three entities that were critically important to Dr. Apple during his long career in orthopedic surgery at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where he served as founding medical director for 30 years.
The Apple award recipient will be honored during the Annual Scientific Meeting, May 13-16 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Rules and Eligibility:
Self-nominations will not be accepted. Nominees must be members of ASIA. The following individuals are not eligible for the Apple and Vogel Awards: ASIA President, President-Elect, Past President, Research and Awards Committee Chair, and Vice Chair.
Submit your nomination, with a copy of the article being nominated, to the ASIA office – asia.office@asia-spinalinjury.org Deadline: February 12, 2024
Congratulations to 2023 Apple Award Recipient, Matthias J. Krenn, PhD. Dr. Krenn received the Apple Award during the ASIA 2023 Annual Scientific Meeting.
Krenn was nominated for his article Neuromodulation with transcutaneous spinal stimulation reveals different groups of motor profiles during robot-guided stepping in humans with incomplete spinal cord injury.
Dr. Krenn is an Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in the Department of Neurosurgery. His research interest is focused on electrical neuromodulation to restore lower limb motor function in individuals with spinal cord injury. His current work involves transcutaneous posterior root stimulation, which has opened a new avenue for non-invasive, multi-segmental activation of the lumbosacral cord. This approach provides novel information on the spatiotemporal relationship of spinal motor control and advances the field of electrical neuromodulation for paralysis and spasticity.
Dr. Krenn received his Doctoral degree (2015) from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, in Biomedical Engineering, researching to maintain mobility in older adults through neuromuscular electrical stimulation. He then continued to work on functional electrical stimulation and neuromodulation as a Post-Doc at the Vienna University of Technology in the Biomedical Sensing Lab and the Medical University of Vienna. He was responsible for developing technologically advanced medical devices utilizing electrical stimulation while recording relevant biological signals.
In 2017, Dr. Krenn joined the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the Methodist Rehabilitation Center, Center for Neuroscience and Neurological Recovery in Jackson Miss., where he pursues his work in a human laboratory to establish new methodologies for neuromodulation interventions in patients with upper motoneuron disorders. Since 2021, Dr. Krenn is also affiliated with the Paralysis Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston to study the role of functional electrical stimulation for nerve transfers and denervated muscles.
Past Apple Award Recipients