Directory of funded grants

Mind Over Matter Magazine (Volume 12)

Role of microglia-derived factors in glial scar formation and axonal regeneration failure after spinal cord injury

Project Overview

The role of microglia in spinal cord injury (SCI) has remained obscure for decades. Microglia, the resident immune cells of the brain and spinal cord, were historically perceived as harmful to neurons and their supporting cells (collectively termed as glial cells) in the context of injury. However, the possibility remains that microglia may have been confused in previous research with macrophages that infiltrate the site of SCI from the bloodstream and adopt many of the same markers…

Restoration of mitochondrial function by activation of the NAD+/Sirtuin pathway to treat PD

Project Overview

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disease for which there is no cure. The cardinal motor symptoms of PD are caused by the massive loss of neurons in a region of the brain called the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc), that use dopamine as a chemical messenger (Giguère et…

Comprehensive Analysis Platform To Understand, Remedy and Eliminate ALS

Project Overview

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a terminal disease that paralyzes people because the brain is no longer able to communicate with the muscles that we are typically able to move at will. One of the challenges is that ALS is a very heterogeneous disease, meaning that each person’s disease is…

Canadian Optogenetics and Vectorology Foundry

Project Overview

Optogenetics is a relatively new science subdomain that is revolutionizing brain research with great promises for therapeutics. Oxford dictionary defines it as a technique in neuroscience in which genes for light-sensitive proteins are introduced into specific types of brain cells in order to monitor and control their activity precisely using…