Dr. Gregory Dekaban
Robarts Research Institute — where research brings discoveries and new technologies to clinical trial, to market, and ultimately, to you — faster.Dr. Gregory Dekaban and the Spinal Cord Injury Team at Robarts Research Institute are developing a new set of therapeutics that will improve recovery for spinal cord injury patients. By reducing and controlling the initial stages of inflammation, they can ensure that only the positive face of inflammation dominates the healing process.
In order to initiate repair of the injured spinal cord tissue, our body's natural inflammatory response helps the damaged tissue to be removed and assists in sterilizing the lesion. This clean-up response, while positive in many respects, can also be overly-excessive and lead to the damage of normal cells in the healthy spinal tissue. This damage can lead to further loss of neurological functions resulting in poorer chance of recovery.
Dr. Dekaban's research is leading to the development of therapeutics for spinal cord injury that encourage the positive aspects of inflammation and limit the amount of damage to healthy cells, resulting in improved recovery and function.
