With over a thousand failed clinical trials in stroke, inventing a new approach may seem daunting. We wondered if we tried something completely different if it would give us hope to regenerate the brain after a traumatic injury like spinal cord injury or stroke. However, even delivering therapeutics to the brain is non-trivial as the common ways of taking medications orally or intravenously are ineffective at getting into the brain. So, we found a new way to achieve local delivery to the brain by circumventing what is commonly called the blood-brain barrier. With a newly invented, injectable material, we were able to deliver therapeutics directly to the brain and spinal cord and these promoted both tissue and functional repair in models of disease. At the same time, we wondered if we could stop or reverse degeneration of the retina that leads to blindness. For this, we took advantage of the power of stem cells to replace those cells lost due to disease, which led to some vision repair in models of disease.
Dr. Shoichet is currently a University Professor and Michael E. Charles Chair in Chemical Engineering at the University of Toronto, where her research is focused on drug and cell delivery strategies in the central nervous system (brain, spinal cord, retina) and 3D hydrogel culture systems to model cancer. She is actively engaged in translational research and science outreach.
All are welcome. No fee or registration is required. Space is limited: doors will close when at capacity.
The lecture will also be accessible virtually.
If attending the event at the School of Medicine, all floors of the building can be accessed by elevator and have accessible washrooms. Some doors do not have automatic openers. Visit Building Accessibility Features for more information. We invite you to contact us to specify any needs we may have overlooked or that are not already in place.
Funding for this speaker series has been made possible by the Dr. Andrew and Margaret Bruce Endowment for Visiting Scholars in Surgical Innovation.
Event Details
School of Medicine Building
15 Arch Street
Britton Smith Lecture Theatre
Kingston ON
Canada
