Dr. Douglas H. Smith This is Me

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1. 1. Lifeboat Foundation Bios: Dr. Douglas H. Smith

   lifeboat.com/ex/bios.douglas.h - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/25/2008   Last Visited: 7/25/2008

   DR. DOUGLAS H. SMITH
   
   The article Stretching the Limits to Heal Spinal Cords said For years, scientists have been trying to make injured spinal cords grow back, with limited success.
   
   Lying awake in bed one night, neurobiologist Douglas H. Smith came up with an offbeat alternative:
   
   Instead of trying to regrow the damaged nerves, how about taking nerve cells from elsewhere in the body and getting them to stretch?After all, he reasoned, a similar process must be going on when whales and giraffes grow their spinal cords to tremendous lengths.
   
   So far, it's working.Smith and his University of Pennsylvania colleagues have taken clumps of nonessential nerve-cell bodies from rats, stretched them very slowly , a millimeter or two a day, in specially constructed stretching boxes , and successfully implanted them into other rats with injured spinal cords.Douglas H. Smith, M.D. is a Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine and the Director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair (CBIR).He has devoted his full-time efforts in the study of neurotrauma, following completion of fellowships in both molecular biology and neural trauma at the University of Connecticut.His current research encompasses single cell to whole brain response to traumatic mechanical deformation.His research interests have included mechanisms of nerve trauma and repair, magnetic resonance techniques for diagnosis of diffuse axonal injury, traumatic brain injury and cognitive dysfunction, and the link between brain trauma and neurodegenerative diseases.These efforts have resulted in over a hundred published reports.
   
   Doug is coauthor of Extreme Stretch Growth of Integrated Axons in The Journal of Neuroscience, Acute treatment with MgSO4 attenuates long-term hippocampal tissue loss after brain trauma in the rat in Journal of Neuroscience Research, Traumatic axonal injury induces proteolytic cleavage of the voltage-gated sodium channels modulated by tetrodotoxin and protease inhibitors in The Journal of Neuroscience, Traumatic axonal injury induces calcium influx modulated by tetrodotoxin-sensitive sodium channels in The Journal of Neuroscience, and Neurogenesis and glial proliferation persist for at least one year in the subventricular zone following brain trauma in rats in Journal of Neurotrauma.Read his full publications list!Learn about the Smith Neurotrauma Lab!
   
   Read his entertaining article Is the roller coaster G force threat all spin?Print bio!

2. 2. Trauma Symposium - Distinguished Faculty - AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center

   www.atlanticare.org/symposium/ - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/8/2008   Last Visited: 7/8/2008

   Douglas H. Smith, MDProfessor, Dept. of Neurosurgery/Director,Center for Brain Injury & Repair

3. 3. The Daily Camera: Business Plus

   www.bouldernews.com/bdc/busine - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/19/2002   Last Visited: 6/19/2002

   Douglas Smith, a brain injury researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, said there isn't enough research to say whether roller coasters can cause brain injuries.But he doesn't see any evidence that they would.
   
   "People just wouldn't be very comfortable.They don't design these roller coasters to whip your head around," Smith said."That's the motion that would cause the brain to be injured."
   
   Smith said a separate study he is planning will look at how the head movement on coasters compares with that in car accidents.