Cervical spinal cord injury (C-SCI) is a common and frequently devastating battlefield injury that can result in a broad range of life-long locomotor and spasticity disabilities. With advances in early evacuation and aggressive medical therapy, there are still no effective therapeutics that salvage spinal cord (SC) neurons /reduce progressive secondary damage. Acceleration/deceleration and contusion SCI cause micro-vessel shear injury, blood spinal cord barrier (BSCB) dysfunction, and hemorrhage. Iron deposited by diffuse micro-hemorrhage fuels oxidative stress and inflammation through reactive oxygen species (ROS), which further induce progressive disabilities. There is an urgent need to address both specific disabilities and risk factors for long-term progressive disabilities, and to develop effective therapies that have excellent potential for translation. The proposal will test the preclinical evaluation of the safety and efficacy of a new iron chelator, SP420, with or without a programmed locomotor therapy in a rodent model of contusion CSCI. The combination of two complementary therapies is aimed to amplify robustness necessary to significantly improve function in a chronic setting of SCI. This novel patented iron chelator will remove bleed-induced free toxic iron, a powerful catalyst of oxidative stress/inflammation, and with locomotor therapy it will upregulate neural and vascular trophic agents to protect and heal injured neural and vascular tissues. The long-term goal of these studies is to develop an effective SCI therapeutic, and to obtain sufficient preclinical evidence to support a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Investigational New Drug (IND) application for human SCI clinical trials. Accordingly, Three Specific Aims will be tested in a clinically relevant rodent model of C-SCI. Currently, the drug has an IND for iron storage disease (e.g. Thalassemia). We have reported enduring motor (spasticity and gait) disabilities in this model. Specific Aim 1