Andrew N. Stewart, PhD

I am an assistant professor at the Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center (SCoBIRC) in the department of Neuroscience. My lab focuses on understanding and overcoming barriers to regeneration and recovery of neurological function in the chronic stages after spinal cord injury (SCI). Ongoing work focuses on two major elements: 1) developing gene-therapy based approaches to induce regeneration of damaged axons and/or improve the function of axons spared from injury in chronic SCI; and 2) identifying mechanisms leading to regenerative failure at and within the chronic lesion. Currently we are using gene-therapy methods to engage a pro-regenerative response in damaged axons that has proven sufficient to induce robust axon growth in acute, but not chronic, lesions. Our ongoing work is elucidating mechanisms of regenerative failure in the chronic SCI and utilizing combinatorial approaches to improve regenerative efficacy in the chronically injured spinal cord.