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| SPEAKER |
| Prof.Geoff Raisman FRS |
| Chair of Neural Regeneration & Director Spinal Repair Unit
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UCL Institute of Neurology
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MEETING
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April 2009 |
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| BIOGRAPHY |
Professor Raisman has been Chair of Neural Regeneration and Director of the Spinal Repair Unit at UCL Institute of Neurology since 2005. Geoff qualified as a doctor and then gained a PhD in neuroscience from Cambridge University. He worked as a University Lecturer in the Department of Human Anatomy at Oxford University from 1965 until 1974 with a year as a Research Fellow in the Department of Anatomy at Harvard University, Boston, USA. From 1974 he headed up the Division of Neurobiology at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research before moving to UCL. In addition to being on a number of international scientific and advisory committees, Geoff has published over 300 papers and received several prestigious awards for his research work. In 2001 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society.
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| TALK |
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Repair of brain and spinal cord by transplantation of olfactory ensheathing cells cultured from adult stem cells
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| DESCRIPTION |
The brain and spinal cord operate through an immense network of fibre connections whose precise pattern is necessary both for their function, and for their ability to incorporate input from the continuous minute by minute changes of life. In stroke, spinal injury, and nerve blindness and deafness these connections are disrupted. The cut fibres maintain their ability to sprout, but their advance is blocked by a neural scar, and they are unable to traverse their original pathways and connect with their former targets. These injuries therefore are as yet irreparable.
Current investigations of repair mechanisms date from the 'Sixties, when it was discovered that there is one part of the nervous system that continually renews itself from stem cells throughout adult life. This is the olfactory system. The pathway taken by the olfactory nerve fibres consists of two cell types – olfactory ensheathing cells and a close investment of fibroblasts. Transplantation of these cultured adult cells into lesions of the spinal cord and spinal roots in rats leads to formation of a tissue which interacts with the neural scar to open it up, and provides a pathway which allows regenerating fibres to elongate and to restore complex functions.
Translation of these positive animal findings to clinical application will depend on us finding a method for obtaining these reparative cells from the adult human olfactory system.
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