Paralyzed
actor Christopher Reeve and others who have lost the use of their limbs
due to spinal cord injury may have hope for assistance in recovery thanks
to research being done by Millikin alumnus Nicole
Tester ’99. Tester is a
doctoral candidate with a pre-doctoral fellowship in neuroscience at the
University of Florida’s College of Medicine.
“My
research focuses on ways of enhancing anatomical recovery and recovery of
locomotor function in the adult cat after spinal cord injury,” she says.
“We are studying the effects of a chondroitinase enzyme and there is
some reason to be encouraged that it may, ultimately, help humans who have
been injured and lost the use of their limbs.” Tester is in her fifth
year of research at UF’s McKnight Brain Institute. Since the beginning
of the project, the suburban Chicago native has been part of a research
team testing the impact of the enzyme on cats whose spinal cords have been
injured.
“My
mentor and I chose cats because of our lab’s experience with this
particular animal model and the huge body of work regarding the locomotion
of cats, which is of great use to us as we evaluate how their movement
improves as we administer the therapy,” says Tester.
“There
is a particular group of molecules thought to inhibit new growth after
injury in the central nervous system and our goal is to promote axonal
growth by changing the cellular environment.” She says preliminarily results are promising.
“It’s
quite a thrill that my mentor is already in talks with a pharmaceutical
company to set up a scientific collaboration,” she says. “It is our
hope that the studies evolving from this collaboration will lead to
clinical trials for this therapy. I have been here since we began
developing preliminary data and will likely be here when our research is
the launchpad for trials to see how we can make this work for people as
well as animals.”
Tester
enjoys her work but says she spends nearly every waking hour in the
laboratory and misses the relatively carefree days of undergraduate study
at Millikin. It was
encouragement from Millikin [chemistry] Professors Ed Acheson and Clarence
Josefson that led Tester to pursue a career in research.
Read the complete
profile in the spring 2004 issue of Millikin Quarterly magazine, due out
in early April.
