Spinal Cord Injury and Neuroprotection

Visit our Lab website: http://www.scrc.umanitoba.ca/~eftekhar/

My laboratory is interested in understanding the cellular and molecular events after Spinal Cord Injury (SCI).  Our overall aim is to find clinically relevant neuroprotective approaches to decrease the extent of cell death and enhance cell survival after SCI.  Increasing evidence indicate that limiting the extent of cell death will result in improved tissue repair and functional recovery for the patients. Despite extensive research in this field, there is currently no effective treatment available for this stage of the injury for the SCI victims. In our Neuroprotection Laboratory, we focus on the oxidative stress as a major underlying mechanism in SCI pathophysiology.  Upregulation of free radicals and oxidation of major cellular macromolecules is a main contributor to initiation cell death mechanisms.  While the majority of cell death occurs during the early days/weeks after injury, progressive loss of neural cells during the more chronic stages of injury has been shown.  Our therapeutic strategy consists of two aims:

1. To use an antioxidant molecule to enhance neural cell survival immediately after injury.
2. To use stem cell-mediated gene and protein delivery to enhance cell preservation for enhancement of repair.

Current Projects:

1. Intracellular delivery of antioxidant proteins to decrease the oxidative stress-induced damages for in vitro and in vivo systems. 
2. Investigation of antioxidants proteins in neural stem cell proliferation and differentiation.
3. Investigation of cellular and molecular basis of Myelin diseases and application of pharmaceutical and stem-cell based approaches for their treatment.

Positions are currently available for both graduate students and post-doctoral positions are currently available.  Please contact Dr. Eftekhar by email.

Areas of Expertise:

Spinal Cord Injury, Applied Stem Cell Biology and Neural Repair, Protein Transduction for Neural Cell Protection.  

Academic Achievements:

• B.Sc. (Zoological Sciences) Univ. of Tehran, 1988
• M.Sc. (Anatomy), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 1991
• Faculty Instructor (Medical Histology), Kerman University of Medical Science, Kerman, Iran, 1991-1996
• Ph.D. (Developmental Neurobiology), Univ. of Saskatchewan, 2001
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, Toronto Western Research Institute, 2001-2006
• Associate Neuroscientist, Toronto Western Research Institute, 2007-2010
• Principal Investigator, Spinal Cord Research Centre Feb 2010-April 2012
• Senior Research Associate (Physiology), Feb 2010-April 2012 Assistant Professor (Physiology), Univ. of Manitoba, May 2012-present.

See also: 

Publications:

Search PubMed for publications by Eftekharpour E

Search PubMed for publications by Eftekharpour E available at UM HSC, St. B. or Victoria libraries