Upcoming webinar: Stem Cell Therapy in Neurodegenerative Disorders and Spinal Cord Injury

Join speakers Catherina Becker, Antonio Salgado and Michael Fehlings as they discuss groundbreaking advancements in spinal cord injury repair. With moderator Lique Coolen, these experts will share cutting-edge research on stimulating neurogenesis for spinal cord regeneration, utilising stem cell secretomes to tackle injury, and employing engineered neural stem cells to repair damaged neural tissue.

Organised by the FENS Committee for Higher Education and Training (CHET) in collaboration with the Neuroscience Training Committee of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN), this webinar will take place on 13 March 2025 from 11 AM – 12 PM EDT (4–5 PM CET) and will be hosted on Neuronline, SfN’s digital platform.

Sign up for the webinar here.

Speaker and Moderator Biographies

Catherina G. Becker is Professor of Neural Development and Regeneration and Alexander-von-Humboldt Professor at the Center for Regenerative Therapies at the Technische Universität Dresden, Germany. From 2005 to 2021, she was a group leader and professor at the University of Edinburgh. The Becker group use adult and larval zebrafish to investigate spinal cord regeneration and mechanisms of motor neuron development and repair in motor neuron diseases.  Talk title: ‘Controlled regenerative neurogenesis in successful spinal cord repair’.

António Salgado a biologist with a PhD in Tissue Engineering and Hybrid Materials, and a Habilitation (DSc) in Health Sciences, from the University of Minho. Currently, he is a Coordinating Investigator at the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), President of the Center for Health Innovation, and Vice-Dean for Research at the  School of Medicine – University of Minho.

His research interests are focused on the development of innovative therapies for CNS repair, namely on Spinal Cord Injury and Parkinson’s Disease, using stem cells secretome. His main areas of research are: 1) Development of ECM like hydrogels for the transplantation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells into the injured CNS; 2) Role of the secretome of MSCs in neuroprotection and repair, particularly the establishment of novel therapies based on the sole use of MSCs secretome. He has previously served as the President of the Portuguese Society for Stem Cells and Cell Therapies (2019-2023) and was also on the board of the European Society for Peripheral Nerve Repair. He has received several distinctions for his work including the Gulbenkian Award on Cutting Edge Research in Life Sciences, the Prize Melo e Castro for Spinal Cord Injury Research, the University of Minho Prize for Scientific Merit and the Grünenthal Prize in Basic Research.  Talk Title: ‘Stem Cells Secretome as a Molecular Therapy in Parkinson’s Disease Regenerative Medicine’.

Dr Michael G. Fehlings (MD, PhD, FRCSC, FACS, FRSC, FCAHS) is the Vice Chair Research for the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto and a Neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network. Dr. Fehlings is a Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Toronto, holds the Robert Campeau Family Foundation / Dr. C.H. Tator Chair in Brain and Spinal Cord Research at UHN, is a Senior Scientist at the Krembil Brain Institute and is Editor-in-Chief of Spinal Cord. In the fall of 2008, Dr. Fehlings was appointed the inaugural Director of the University of Toronto Neuroscience Program (which he held until June 2012) and is currently Co-Director of the University of Toronto Spine Program. Dr. Fehlings combines an active clinical practice in complex spinal surgery with a translationally oriented research program focused on discovering novel treatments to improve functional outcomes following spinal cord injury (SCI). He has published over 1,150 peer-reviewed articles (h-index 129; cited over 49,000 times) chiefly in the area of central nervous system injury and complex spinal surgery. Talk title: ‘Repair and regeneration of the injured cervical cord using engineered neural stem cells’.

Dr Lique Coolen (PhD) is the Vice President of Research at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech or NMT). She previously served as Associate Dean and Professor of Biological Sciences at Kent State University. Before that, she held faculty positions at the University of Mississippi, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Western Ontario, and the University of Michigan. Coolen earned her PhD from the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands.