SEMINAR: "Strategies at UWA for the Repair of the Injured Spinal Cord" AND "New Insights into the function and regeneration of oligodendrocytes in the brain�

Associate Professor Stuart Hodgetts is currently Director of the Spinal Cord Repair Laboratory in the School of Anatomy, Physiology & Human Biology (APHB), at The University of Western Australia (UWA). Now funded almost entirely by the Neurotrauma Research Program of Western Australia (NRP), his research focuses mainly on the use of human adult mesenchymal precursor cells isolated from bone marrow, which have shown marked improvements in morphological as well as functional (locomotor) outcomes in animal models of spinal cord injury (SCI). He is also currently developing technologies for the use of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells for use in spinal cord injury and gene therapy, as well as non-invasive techniques such as red/near infrared irradiation and transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy. Many of these techniques have evolved through collaboration with other NRP-funded scientists at UWA. He is also developing multi-electrode array technology for electrophysiological studies, as well as developing the Spinal Cord Repair Laboratory as a core facility for incorporating other strategies used by other researchers designed to promote neuro-regeneration into the setting of SCI toward preclinical studies.

Dr Merson completed his PhD at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research in 2006, demonstrating the critical role of epigenetics in the regulation of neural stem cell function and adult neurogenesis. He then took up a postdoctoral position within the Multiple Sclerosis Group at the Howard Florey Institute and was awarded a Betty Cuthbert Training Fellowship (2007-2010) jointly funded by the NHMRC and Multiple Sclerosis Research Australia. During this period he developed expertise in diverse in vitro and in vivo methodologies to study the biology of neural progenitor cells and oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. In 2013, he established his own laboratory within the Multiple Sclerosis Division at the Florey Institute and in the same year, was awarded a Melbourne Neuroscience Institute Fellowship.