Home Department: undeclared
Mentor: Giles Plant, Neurosurgery

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is devastating to patients and affects millions of people. However, current therapy development is limited because rodent models cannot represent some key human neural physiologies. By combining multielectrode arrays and a novel stem cell strategy developed in the Plant laboratory, Shawn will work on building a platform that characterizes long-term cultures of corticospinal neurons, allowing for analysis of their morphology, physiology, and function. This innovative, human-relevant platform will facilitate the development of new SCI therapies.