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

Stroke is the number one source of disability in adults yet there are currently no medical treatments for humans that can successfully repair the brain damage that leads to the disabilities. Recent work has shown that neural stem cells that are resident in the adult brain can be activated using drugs and that these activated cells will contribute to tissue repair and functional recovery. This exciting work showed improvement in motor based tasks in young animals but we need to ask if it will also work to improve the cognitive deficits that are so devastating, and much more prevalent, following stroke. Importantly, we will determine whether these strategies work in old aged animals, the primary age group affected by stroke. We will design novel tools for delivering the drugs to activate cells, as these are needed to make the approach clinically feasible. We will also address whether we can find ways to increase the recovery through exercise therapy or exposure to enriched environmental stimuli. Finally, we will translate our findings from "bench to bedside" and perform human safety trials with the drug delivery materials and the factors that stimulate the brain stem cells. These studies will help us to reach our ultimate goal of repairing the human brain following stroke.