The UGC Innovative-Invited Lecture series on “Mechanism of Central Nervous System (CNS) regeneration” was organised by the Department of Studies in Microbiology, University of Mysore recently.
Dr. Mark Kotter, Welcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, delivered the lecture on the topic at the Microbiology Seminar Hall of the department at Manasagangotri campus.
Dr. Mark Kotter said that demyelinating disorders of the central nervous system are among the most crippling neurological diseases affecting patients at various stages of life. In the most prominent demyelinating disease, multiple sclerosis, the regeneration of myelin sheaths often fails due to a default of the resident stem/precursor cells (oligodendrocyte precursor cells) to differentiate into mature myelin forming cells.
He said that significant advances have been made in our understanding of the molecular and cellular processes involved in remyelination.
He further said that important insight has been gained from studies investigating the interaction of stem/precursor cells with the distinct environment of demyelinating lesions and added that these suggest that successful regeneration depends on a signalling environment conducive to remyelination, which is provided in the context of acute inflammation.
He, however, said that multiple sclerosis lesions also contain factors that inhibit the differentiation of oligodendrocyte precursor cells into myelinating oligodendrocytes.
The pattern by which remyelination inducers and inhibitors are expressed in multiple sclerosis lesions may determine a window of opportunity during which oligodendrocyte precursor cells can successfully differentiate.
Research scholars from Dept. of Microbiology, Genetics, Zoology, Bio-Chemistry, Bio-Technology and other departments attended the lecture.
Prof. Ravishankar Rai, Coordinator, UGC Innovative Programme, Prof. Manja, former Director, DRDO, Dr. M.S. Basavaraju, Dr. Subba Rao of JSS Medical College, Prof. Shamala and others were present.
Courtesy : Star Of Mysore