Kristine Cowley, PhD
Associate Professor, Physiology & Pathophysiology
Director, Spinal Cord Research Centre
University of Manitoba
Kristine Cowley received a PhD in physiology (neurosciences) in 1998, investigating the neural mechanisms and pathways generating and coordinating walking within the spinal cord. Cowley holds a Canada Research Chair in Spinal Cord Function, and Health after Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). Her research ranges from: understanding the pathways and neural mechanisms involved in the let-down reflex for breastfeeding in women with tetraplegia; to understanding how the spinal cord normally produces and coordinates movement; to how bone mineral density is regulated after SCI; to identifying means to improve exercise function and exercise capacity in those living with tetraplegia.
Outside of her research life, Cowley was awarded three medals, and set two world records, in athletics/track at the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona (under the surname Harder). Outside of academia, she served as executive director of the Manitoba Division of the Canadian Paraplegic Association from 1995 to 1998 where she learned first-hand how good health and social policy can drastically improve life quality for people living with SCI and how poor health and social policy can drastically impair life quality and the ability for those living with SCI to contribute within their communities.
Jan Schwab, MD, PhD
Professor, Department of Neurology
William E. Hunt, MD & Charlotte M. Curtis Chair in Neuroscience
The Ohio State University, College of Medicine
Jan Schwab received his MD from Eberhard-Karls-University in Tubingen, Germany and his PhD from Max-Planck Graduate Research School Tubingen, Germany. He completed postdoctoral fellowships in Developmental Neurobiology with Dr. Alain Chédotal at CNRS (Paris, France) and Basic Immunology with Dr. Charles Serhan at Harvard Medical School. His current research interests include protection of the intrinsic recovery potential after spinal cord injury (SCI); resolution of inflammation in the lesioned central nervous system (CNS); control of the CNS on the immune system; and improving the predictive value of animal models for clinical translation.
Dr. Schwab’s research aims to better understand and treat the maladaptive immune response after SCI. This is composed of the systemic SCI-induced immune deficiency syndrome (SCI-IDS) and the developing post-traumatic autoimmunity. Both maladaptive neuro-immunological syndromes are associated with inferior repair and a target to improve neurological recovery.
Reggie Edgerton, PhD
Emeritus Professor
University of California, Los Angeles
Reggie Edgerton received his PhD in Exercise Physiology with a focus in comparative systems biology from Michigan State University and is the Co-Director of the “Broccoli Impossible to Possible Lab” of the Rancho Research Institute and a member of the Department of Neurological Surgery and the USC Neurorestoration Center. His research is focused on how movement is controlled and how the neural networks in the spinal cord and brain regain control of posture, locomotion and autonomic functions after paralysis. His research further investigates the mechanistic targets that underlie this neuromuscular plasticity of neural networks when imposing activity-dependent interventions in combination with techniques to neuromodulate different states of plasticity after spinal cord injury and chronic neuromuscular dysfunctions.
