Cellular therapies for spinal cord injury: what might they achieve?

Spinal cord injury is a devastating condition leading to loss of sensory, motor and autonomic function. These functional deficits result from interruption of communication between the brain and spinal cord below the injury and are generally permanent because of the limited capacity of the adult mammalian CNS for repair. One biological therapy aimed at promoting repair of the spinal cord, that has now been investigated for several decades and has progressed to clinical translation, is cell transplantation. This talk will provide an overview of cell based therapies for spinal cord injury, comparing some of the different strategies involving different cell types (differentiated versus stem cells), from different sources, illustrated by examples from our own studies. The aim will be to provide a realistic perspective of the potential of cell based therapies for repair and improvement of outcome after spinal cord injury.

Bio:
John Riddell is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Glasgow with a research focus on spinal cord function and injury. He obtained a BSc degree in Physiology from the University of Leeds and PhD in Neurophysiology from the University of Edinburgh. After a post-doctoral position at University College London and a period working in Sweden on a Wellcome Trust Travelling Fellowship he established his own lab at The University of Glasgow. His work has contributed to understanding of both sensory and motor spinal circuits and he has a special interest in mechanisms underlying pain states. Spinal cord injury, and in particular, preclinical investigation of the therapeutic potential of cell transplantation strategies has been a further main theme of research in the lab over the last 15 years. The lab is now also engaged in clinical studies directed at understanding mechanism of pain and plasticity after nervous system trauma, using approaches that include fMRI.