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

Nerve cells (neurons) communicate with each other over long distances by the passage of electrical signals along nerve fibers (axons). The efficient transmission of electrical signals along large axons requires the axons to be properly insulated by a covering of several wraps of membranes called myelin. The breakdown of myelin (demyelination) results in the stoppage of the transmission of the electrical signals and thus failure of the nerve cells to communicate with each other. The well-known disease in which demyelination occurs is multiple sclerosis (MS). Patients with MS get various degrees of paralysis and loss of sensation. Demyelination also occurs after spinal cord injury and in damage to peripheral nerves (nerves found in the limbs). One aim of this proposal is to study the role of a class of molecules called connexins in the demyelination/remyelination process. Connexins form junctions between cells that allow them to communicate with each other. This grant includes the development and testing of novel optical imaging techniques to visualize the very early changes in myelin breakdown in real-time; the screening of natural compounds obtained from medicinal plants to find compounds that affect connexin function and prevent myelin breakdown or promote remyelination; the development of drug delivery systems; and testing of these compounds in animal models of MS, spinal cord injury and peripheral nerve injury. This work could lead to the development of new drug treatments for several neurological conditions.