Expert on Spinal Cord Injury and Recovery to Lecture at UB

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Barbara Bregman, Ph.D., professor and chair in the Department of Neuroscience at Georgetown University Medical Center, will discuss "Regeneration and Recovery of Function After Spinal Cord Injury" at the 12th annual J. Warren Perry Lecture, sponsored by the School of Health Related Professions at UB.

The lecture, named for founding dean of the School of Health Related Professions from 1966 until his retirement in 1977, will be held at 4 p.m. Oct. 6 in the Screening Room in the Center for the Arts on the North Campus. It will be free and open to the public.

Bregman, who serves on the scientific advisory board for the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, has for the past 20 years conducted basic research in spinal-cord regeneration that has brought her international recognition.

After earning a bachelor's degree in physical therapy from Russell Sage College, Bregman received a master's degree in anatomy from Howard University and a doctorate in anatomy from the Medical College of Pennsylvania. She has been at Georgetown University School of Medicine since 1988.

The long-range goal of her Georgetown laboratory is to identify the requirements of developing mature central-nervous-system neurons for survival and regeneration after injury, and to identify ways to enhance regeneration and recovery of function after spinal-cord injury at birth through maturity.

She is principal investigator on two National Institutes for Health (NIH) research grants: one studying central-nervous-system regeneration in neonatal and adult mammals that has been active since 1983, and a second, studying recovery and function after spinal-cord injury, that has been active since 1989.

She also is principal investigator on a grant from the International Spinal Research Trust in Great Britain to study cellular and molecular mechanisms of collateral sprouting and axonal regeneration after acute and chronic spinal-cord injury.

In addition, she is program director on a 10-year NIH institutional training grant to train pre-and postdoctoral students in recovery of function after central-nervous-system injury.

Bregman is a member of the International Spinal Research Trust Network and is an editor or reviewer with several professional publications in her field.