News

$300k research award to spinal cord regrowth

[ UniNews Vol. 14, No. 7  2 - 16 May 2005 ]

A University of Melbourne researcher has been rewarded with a SpinalCure Australia Fellowship for her groundbreaking research to enhance the regrowth of spinal cord nerves after they are damaged.

Dr Yona Goldshmit (Centre for Neuroscience) is a member of the Australian team that recently successfully regrew spinal cord nerves in mice, restoring their ability to walk within weeks of a spinal injury.

A director of SpinalCure Australia, Mr Gary Allsop, presented Dr Goldshmit with the award, worth $300,000 over three years, at the University recently.

The award will enable Dr Goldshmit to continue her pioneering work into the role of the molecule EphA4 in spinal cord injury. Already the researchers have shown that mice lacking this molecule are capable of regrowing nerve cells.

The research involved collaboration between the Centre for Neuroscience and School of Physiotherapy at the University of Melbourne, the Queensland Brain Institute at the University of Queensland and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research – see uninews.unimelb.edu.au/articleid_1908.html

Dr Goldshmit will work to develop methods for blocking the action of EphA4 in normal mice in the hope that this will eventually translate to humans and enable human spinal nerves to grow back across a severed spinal cord.

“This award is vital for allowing our research to continue and we hope to make considerable progress over the next three years,” she says.

SpinalCure Australia is a not-for-profit research organisation dedicated to finding a cure for spinal cord injury –www.spinalcure.org.au