Brain Regenerative Discovery Fund
About This Fund
This fund focuses on the search for treatments that fall in the regenerative medicine category. Over the past two decades, regenerative cell therapy, also known as stem cell therapy, has provided an opportunity to investigate innovative strategies for treating neurodegenerative conditions. Stem cells have the capability to repair injured neuronal tissue by replacing the damaged or lost cells and may play a beneficial role in slowing Alzheimer’s disease’s progression. This is explained in more detail on a recently published article by the International Journal of Molecular Sciences “Regenerative Stem Cell Therapy for Neurodegenerative Diseases: An Overview”.
Focus Area: Treatment
Grants Distributed
Project: Discovering the genetic regulators of human central nervous system (CNS) axon regeneration
Investigator: Yun Li, Ph.D.
Co-Investigator: Julien Muffat, Ph.D.
Institute: Hospital for Sick Children
Award Value: $200,000 (over 2 years)
Project Description:
Using human stem cells, Drs. Li, Muffat and their teams are building neurons in a dish and then looking for factors which block axon regeneration after injury. In humans, damaged axons do not readily regenerate. This is why it is so hard for people to recover from brain and spinal cord injuries, and why neurodegenerative conditions (at this time) have an irreversible and progressive course. Scientists have recently observed that something intrinsic exists to block neurons from re-growing their axons after injury; Drs. Li and Muffat’s mission is to find out what that ‘something’ is. Using cutting-edge technologies, Drs. Li, Muffat and their teams will conduct an unbiased genome-wide ‘search’ for the key signal(s) blocking axon regeneration. If successful, their research will lead to innovative treatments, which could apply to a wide range of previously untreatable diseases of the central nervous system, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, and possibly Alzheimer’s disease.
Yun Li, Ph.D.
Scientist, Hospital For Sick ChildrenAssistant Professor, Medicine by Design Investigator, University of Toronto
Julien Muffat, Ph.D.
Scientist, Neurosciences and Mental Health, Hospital for Sick ChildrenAssistant Professor in Molecular Genetics, Medicine by Design Investigator, University of TorontoCanada Research Chair in Synthetic Neuroimmunology and Stem Cell Bioengineering