Grant: Emerging Team Grant: Regenerative Medicine and Nanomedicine - LOI

After injury to the CNS (as in stroke, spinal cord injury or certain disease states) nerves are broken causing a loss of the ability to do normal functions like walking. Following such injury the nerves degenerate and in some cases actually die. This proposal will address three key ideas for new ways to repair this nerve damage. 1: Novel environments will be developed to encourage survival and growth. 2: Chemical cues and gradients will be developed to direct the re-growth of nerves toward the appropriate targets from which their connections have been severed. In addition, inhibitory factors which normally prevent re-growth must be neutralized. 3: Strategies will be developed to stimulate new connectionss between the new nerves and their target muscles.