Grant: China-Canada Joint Health Research Initiative

Spinal cord injury (SCI) can occur due to many causes, including automobile collisions, sports and recreational activities, work-related accidents, falls, and violence. The incidence of SCI has been estimated at 11,000 per year in North America, and 85,000 per year in China. SCI can result in devastating and permanent loss of neurological function. Current interventions include intravenous methylprednisolone therapy and early reduction, decompression, and stabilization. These interventions generally prevent further neurological deficit and promote segmental improvements, yet the incidence of recovery of neurological function, in either acute or chronic SCI, is highly variable and the return of function is almost never compete. The use of guidance scaffolds shows promise in improving the repair of SCI. In this method, biomaterial scaffolds are seeded with viable cells (e.g., Schwann cells) and act to support and promote axon growth upon implantation. Despite recent advances, limited demonstration of functional improvement in animal models has prevented advancement of any regenerative therapy to clinical trial. We believe one important barrier is the inability to engineer scaffolds with controlled microstructure and composition (including biomaterials and viable cells). This project will develop advanced methods to synthesize composite biomaterials and to design and fabricate scaffolds, as applied to SCI repair. This work will significantly advance the theoretical and practical basis of scaffold bio-engineering to foster SCI repair in animal models, and eventually in humans. The resulting knowledge and technologies will also support other tissue engineering applications such as brain and heart, thereby contributing to existing strengths in the Canadian and Chinese research community towards the development of new and more widely applicable tissue engineering strategies.