Conference Description
The Central Nervous System Injury and Repair GRC is a premier, international scientific conference focused on advancing the frontiers of science through the presentation of cutting-edge and unpublished research, prioritizing time for discussion after each talk and fostering informal interactions among scientists of all career stages. The conference program includes a diverse range of speakers and discussion leaders from institutions and organizations worldwide, concentrating on the latest developments in the field. The conference is five days long and held in a remote location to increase the sense of camaraderie and create scientific communities, with lasting collaborations and friendships. In addition to premier talks, the conference has designated time for poster sessions from individuals of all career stages, and afternoon free time and communal meals allow for informal networking opportunities with leaders in the field.
This Gordon Research Conference (GRC) series, entitled “Central Nervous System Injury and Repair”, together with its accompanying Gordon Research Seminar (GRS), provides a forum for the exchange of the most exciting and cutting-edge scientific data and novel ideas in the rapidly advancing fields of injury, regeneration, and repair of the central nervous system, with particular emphasis on spinal cord injury. Spinal cord injury is a major medical challenge leaving millions of people worldwide paralyzed. Despite many years of effort, effective therapies are still lacking due to the complexity of this disease. In addition to the damage of axons, spinal cord injury leads to profound changes of the cellular and molecular environment, involving neurons, glia, immune systems, and others. These barriers collectively present a great challenge in restoring the original circuitry. An emerging consensus is that a better understanding of underlying mechanisms, together with combinatorial approaches to stimulate neural repair, will be necessary to repair axonal injury and induce functional recovery. This conference will feature an exciting program with speakers presenting cutting edge and innovative science including topics that span from cellular and molecular mechanisms from multiple animal models to advance our understanding of the injury response, circuit remodeling and the repair processes, to sessions on organoids, cell therapies and emerging neurotechnologies that will propel new knowledge and approaches towards clinical translation, whose challenges and opportunities will be discussed. Preceding this meeting, the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) will provide an excellent opportunity for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and early career scientists to share their research progress. We welcome attendance from basic and physician scientists, from industry, and any stakeholder, and we encourage a breath of diversity of meeting participants across gender, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, geographical locations, and age groups that will facilitate a broad and enriched communication of the scientific content.
The topics, speakers, and discussion leaders for the conference sessions are displayed below. The conference chair is currently developing their detailed program, which will include the complete meeting schedule, as well as the talk titles for all speakers. The detailed program will be available by March 11, 2023. Please check back for updates.
Keynote Session: Neuronal Circuit Mechanisms of Movement
Discussion Leaders
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Victoria Abraira (Rutgers University, United States)
Speakers
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Martyn Goulding (The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, United States)
Cervical and Respiratory Plasticity
Discussion Leaders
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Gordon Mitchell (University of Florida, United States)
Speakers
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Erica Dale (University of Florida, United States)
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Philippa Warren (King's College London, United Kingdom)
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Florence Bareyre (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany)
Genomics Approaches to Axon Regeneration
Discussion Leaders
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Binhai Zheng (University of California, San Diego, United States)
Speakers
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Simone Di Giovanni (Imperial College London, United Kingdom)
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Murray Blackmore (College of Health Sciences, Marquette University, United States)
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Claire Le Pichon (National Institutes of Health, United States)
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Zhigang He (Harvard Medical School, United States)
Roles of Glia and Matrix in Spinal Cord Repair
Discussion Leaders
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Catherina Becker (Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden, TU Dresden, Germany)
Speakers
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Yimin Zou (University of California, San Diego, United States)
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Alyson Fournier (McGill University, Canada)
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Linda Hsieh-Wilson (California Institute of Technology, United States)
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Jerry Silver (Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, United States)
Animal Models for Axon Regeneration
Discussion Leaders
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Britta Eickholt (Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany)
Speakers
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Catherina Becker (Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden, TU Dresden, Germany)
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Alexandra Byrne (UMass Chan Medical School, United States)
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Catherine Collins (Case Western Reserve University, United States)
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Monica Sousa (i3S Univeristy of Porto Portugal, Portugal)
Translational Research to Inform Practice (TRIP)
Discussion Leaders
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Linda Jones (Research Consultant/Thomas Jefferson University, United States)
Speakers
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John Gensel (University of Kentucky, United States)
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Mariel Purcell (National Spinal Injuries Unit, NHS Scotland, United Kingdom)
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Martin Schwab (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Motor Plasticity
Discussion Leaders
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Megan Detloff (Drexel University, United States)
Speakers
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Karim Fouad (University of Alberta, Canada)
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Tuan Bui (University of Ottawa, Canada)
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Aya Takeoka (VIB, Belgium)
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Wolfram Tetzlaff (University of British Columbia, Canada)
Neuronal Cell Biology of Axon Regeneration
Discussion Leaders
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Hongyan (Jenny) Zou (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States)
Speakers
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Frank Bradke (German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Germany)
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Kai Liu (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR China)
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Homaira Nawabi (Grenoble Institute of Neuroscience- INSERM U1216, France)
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Britta Eickholt (Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany)
Keynote Session: Stem Cells in CNS Repair
Discussion Leaders
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Mark Tuszynski (UC San Diego, United States)
Speakers
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Magdalena Goetz (Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Germany)
The GRC Power Hour™
Organizers
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Angela Filous (The Ohio State University, United States)
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Simone Di Giovanni (Imperial College London, United Kingdom)