Damien D. Pearse, Ph.D.

Exploration and Translation of Therapeutic Strategies to Repair the Injured Spinal Cord and Brain

My laboratory focuses on several key aspects of spinal cord injury repair:

1. preventing progressive tissue damage following the initial mechanical trauma through the application of pharmacological or biological neuroprotectants,
2. overcoming the physical impediment of the injury cyst through the implantation of exogenous cells or by harnessing endogenous cellular repair mechanisms and,
3. the promotion of axon regeneration by the stimulation of intracellular signaling pathways that are important in the initiation and/or maintainence of axon growth.

The overall goal of the laboratory is to identify and/or develop effective combinatory strategies that target all of these deficiences so as to establish an efficacious treatment regimen for clinical implementation in human SCI. It is also our aim to find strategies that are amenable to the acute and/or chronic phases of SCI and that are not associated with adverse effects that would negate the benefits of such therapies clinically (development of pain, tumor formation etc.)