Spinal Cord Injury and Repair
When a spinal cord is bruised or severed, very little can be done besides waiting and watching for the extent of any recovery. Advances in stem cell and other repair strategies promise a change in this bleak picture. The mission of the Spinal Cord Injury and Repair program is to translate advances in understanding the biology the spinal cord together with bioengineering solutions to give enhanced quality of life for those with spinal cord damage.
Many terrible diseases of the nervous system involve massive neuron loss. Researchers are discovering that there are a lot of similarities in the way that those neurons are lost in disorders as disparate as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, and Lou Gehrig’s diseases, blindness by macular degeneration, and even spinal cord injury. The nervous systems seems to engage molecular defenses intended to help the cells, but end up killing the cells instead. This new appreciation for the role of intrinsic processes of cell survival or cell death opens a doorway towards new therapeutic approaches that will prevent cell loss and promote repairs.
Vision and Blindness Prevention
Blindness and vision research is benefiting from progress in understanding how the nervous system develops, especially of the important signal molecules that guide nerve growth in the brain regions that produce a picture of the world. Translation of this new knowledge into devices, diagnostic procedures and therapeutic approaches will be able to treat and prevent blindness, and bring computer technology to bear for vision aids.
Research in the program on neurodegeneration and regeneration points the way toward new treatments based on a better understanding of the biology of each disorder. These new therapies aim to boost or interrupt natural functions of key cellular signals. The research in this program also offers promising new avenues for cellular and engineering approaches for regrowing or replacing lost neurons.
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