Our research focuses on pursuing new treatments for injuries to and diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) utilizing the principles of tissue engineering and drug delivery. In the US alone, about 11,000 new spinal cord injuries occur each year, and over one million people suffer from conditions of retinal degeneration. In both cases, sadly, there are no known treatments to repair the damage; however, research has shown that, given the proper environment, repair and regeneration is possible.

We seek to create environments that promote repair using three-dimensional biodegradable polymer systems, which would, in turn, enable us control the temporal and spatial patterning of growth factors, the surface chemistry, and the physical guidance of cells. We are using these systems to study the cues which direct neural stem cells to proliferate and differentiate with the hope that, someday, we may be able to replace cells lost to injury and restore function.

We have used scaffolds seeded with stem cells in models of spinal cord injury and retinal degeneration and seen very promising early results. In the case of spinal cord injury, treatment with cell-seeded scaffolds was shown to promote weight-bearing, coordinated steps.