The prominent Journal Neuron published an article today by Carleton University Professor, Patrice Smith, which has major implications for regeneration and repair of damaged nerves.
Dr. Smith, along with her colleagues at Harvard University, Fang Sun and Zhigang He, discovered that a specific molecule in the central nervous system (CNS) suppresses our ability to repair injured neurons.
“It appears that this molecule, known as Socs3, prevents people from responding to naturally released proteins that help repair nerve damage,” says Dr. Smith. “Our research shows that, by inhibiting this molecule, we can promote repair of the injured nervous system. I am hoping that my research will lead to more effective therapies for people like Rick Hansen, who suffer from spinal cord injury, as well as those with brain injury and optic nerve injury.”
Dr. Smith is a professor of neuroscience in the psychology department at Carleton University and a research fellow at Harvard Medical School. She was awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard, in 2005, to carry out her research on repair of the nervous system by targeting nerve regeneration. She continued her research when she moved back to Ottawa last year to join Carleton’s Institute of Neuroscience. Dr. Smith is among several researchers within the Institute who are exploring behavioural and neurological mechanisms underlying depression, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and brain/spinal cord injury.
In addition to the current article in Neuron, Dr. Smith has previously published her work in prestigious journals, including Science, Journal of Neuroscience and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
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For more information:
Lin Moody
Media Relations
Carleton University
613-520-2600, ext. 8705
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