Complex intercellular signalling regulates successful spinal cord repair in the zebrafish

Catherina Becker obtained an MRes in Human Genetics and a PhD in Neurosciences from the University of Bremen, Germany, studying development and successful regeneration of the amphibian (frogs and salamanders) central nervous system. For her first postdoctoral training post, she moved to the renowned Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, Switzerland on an EMBO-funded postdoctoral fellowship. Her postgraduate studies continued at the University of California, and the Centre for Molecular Neurobiology in Hamburg on German Research Foundation (DFG) Fellowships. The Becker group moved to the University of Edinburgh in 2005 where Catherina Becker was Professor for Neural Development and Regeneration and the Deputy Director of the Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences. In July 2021, the Becker group moved to the Center for Regenerative Therapies at the TU Dresden. For this, Catherina Becker was awarded an Alexander-von-Humboldt Professorship, Germany’s most highly endowed research prize.

 

Catherina is a founding member of EuFishBioMed, the European Society of Fish Models in Biology and Medicine, she is on the directorial board of the International Society for Regenerative Biology ISRB, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB), and the co-Director of the Wellcome Trust funded 4 year PhD programme in Tissue Repair at the University of Edinburgh.

 

The Becker group use adult and larval zebrafish to investigate spinal cord regeneration and mechanisms of motor neuron development and repair in motor neuron diseases. After a spinal cord injury, the central nervous system gets invaded by a number of different non-neural cell types. The role of the interaction between neural and non-neural tissues in successful spinal cord regeneration is not well understood. Catherina Becker is going to talk about the function of these complex interactions for successful neural repair after spinal injury.