Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Spinal cord injury (SCI) affects an estimated 42,000 Canadians and represents a substantial financial burden for the Canadian health care system. The motor, sensory and autonomic dysfunctions associated with SCI result primarily from the loss of projecting axons (which carry electrical signals) and the loss of glial cells (that insulate axons with myelin to maintain the speed of those electrical signals). Replacing those lost cells is one potential strategy to treat SCI. My research aims to determine the potential benefits of treating chronic SCI by transplanting myelinating (i.e., insulating) glial cells known as Schwann cells into the injured rat spinal cord. These particular Schwann cells (known as SKP-SCs) are of great interest because they can be generated from cells found in human skin (SKPs) rather than being harvested from peripheral nerve - the traditional source of Schwann cells. SKP-SCs have been shown to myelinate and enhance the growth of axons in acute and sub-acute SCI. SKP-SCs would be advantageous for use in clinical settings because they can be made from adult human skin, and can thus be transplanted into the same person who donated the skin to produce the cells; eliminating the need for harmful immunosuppressive drugs normally required to prevent cell rejection. The adult source of these cells also eliminates ethical concerns that plague cells from fetal/embryonic sources, and unlike the harvest of Schwann cells from peripheral nerve, isolating SKPs from skin carries little risk of permanent nerve damage. Given that the largest proportion of the SCI population consists of individuals with chronic injuries, we propose to examine the outcome of transplanting human SKP-SCs in a rodent model of chronic SCI to further establish their potential for clinical translation. In addition, we will conduct a detailed analysis of the response of the host spinal cord to SKP-SC transplantation, to determine how SKP-SCs influence natural repair mechanisms post-SCI.