Thallmair
Fakultäten » Medizinische Fakultät » Hirnforschung, Institut für » Prof. Dr. Martin E. Schwab » Thallmair
Completed research project
| Title / Titel | Adult spinal cord progenitor cells in the intact and injured CNS | ||
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| Abstract (PDF, 14 KB) | |||
| Summary / Zusammenfassung | The group of Michaela Thallmair-Honold is interested in adult stem and progenitor cells and their role for repair in the adult central nervous system (CNS), especially the spinal cord. During the last decade compelling evidence emerged that challenged the longstanding belief that regeneration in the CNS ceases with the end of development. Recent studies have shown that new neurons are continuously born throughout life in two areas of the brain: The subventricular zone of the forebrain and the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. Other adult CNS regions, such as the striatum, substantia nigra and the spinal cord, also contain proliferating cells. In vivo these cells give rise exclusively to glial cells. However, when proliferating cells from these so-called gliogenic/non-neurogenic regions are isolated and cultured, they are able to self-renew and to differentiate into the three major lineages of the CNS: astrocytes, oligodendrocytes and neurons. These findings suggest that adult progenitor cells are present not only in the neurogenic regions, the subventricular zone and the dentate gyrus, but along the entire neuroaxis. A restricting factor in the field of neural stem cell research is the lack of specific markers allowing a classification of neural stem and progenitor cells (NSPCs) in different regions of the CNS. One of the projects in our laboratory is the establishment of a novel protocol and described in the following. The second major project of the Thallmair group focuses on the microenvironment of stem and progenitor cells and aims identifying factors in the developing and mature intact or injured CNS influencing their behavior. Weitere Informationen |
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| Publications / Publikationen | Obermair* FJ, Schröter* A and Thallmair M (2008) Endogenous neural progenitor cells as therapeutic target after spinal cord injury. Physiology, 23:296-304, 2008Weitere Informationen | ||
| Keywords / Suchbegriffe | neuroscience, stem cell, spinal cord | ||
| Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte |
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| Other links to external web pages | http://www.neuroscience.ethz.ch/ http://www.nccr-neuro.ethz.ch/ http://www.charite.de/cortex/projects.html |
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| Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch |
SNF (Programm NFS/NCCR), EU, Foundation |
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| Duration of Project / Projektdauer | Jan 2007 to Dec 2009 |