$2.4 million stimulus fuels effort to regenerate injured spinal cords

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By University of Florida

December 7, 2009

For more than 400 years, scientists have studied the amazing regenerative power of salamanders, trying to understand how these creatures routinely repair injuries that would usually leave humans and other mammals paralyzed — or worse.

Now, fueled by a highly competitive National Institutes of Health Grand Opportunity grant of $2.4 million, a multi-institutional team of researchers associated with the University of Florida McKnight Brain Institute’s Regeneration Project has begun creating genomic tools necessary to compare the extraordinary regenerative capacity of the Mexican axolotl salamander with established mouse models of human disease and injury.

Researchers want to find ways to tap unused human capacities to treat spinal cord injury, stroke, traumatic brain injury and other neural conditions, according to Edward Scott, principal investigator for the GO grant and director of the McKnight Brain Institute’s Program in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.

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