The research will be performed at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Solna in the research group of Professor and Neurosurgeon Mikael Svensson. We currently have two opportunities for projects and seek highly motivated students that are interested in pre-clinical research.



Project 1) Tanycytes in the spinal stem cell niche

After an injury to the spinal cord, the stem cells around the central canal of the spinal cord react to the injury by starting to divide, then migrate towards the injury, and finally differentiate to glial cell. A specific cell population among the stem cells have long processes that extend dorsally and ventrally throughout the cord. How these cells react to an injury and their role in the stem cell response remain poorly understood. In this project you will characterize this stem cell niche population in the injured and uninjured mouse spinal cord using 3D imaging, immunohistochemistry, and image analysis.



Project 2) Chronic spinal cord injury in humans

After an injury to the spinal cord a chronic scar is formed that prevents regeneration and repair. Our current knowledge concerning the cell composition is primarily derived from rodent models. Mapping the chronic spinal scar in humans chronic may provide information of potential great consequences to translation of treatments. We possess chronic spinal scar samples that stem from 7 patients, whose tissue was collected as part of a clinical trial and we are currently analysing the gene expression together with the SciLife core facilities. In this project, you will compare the human gene expressions to that of rodent experimental models using bioinformatics, immunohistochemistry, and image analysis.