Lana Zholudeva, PhD, investigates cell therapy approaches to treat neural injury and disease. Harnessing advances in cellular engineering, Zholudeva is designing specific types of pro-reparative neurons that can be transplanted into pre-clinical models of damaged nervous systems. Her team evaluates the benefits of this novel cell therapy using cutting-edge approaches including single-cell sequencing, electrophysiology, neuroanatomical tracing, and behavioral analysis. Her work on traumatic spinal cord injury has identified a specific population of neurons that are critical for promoting recovery, and may be a key cell type for breakthrough therapies.
Disease Areas
Areas of Expertise
Lab Focus
Research Impact
Current treatments for spinal cord injury are extremely limited, and are primarily focused on leveraging the plasticity that remains in neural tissue spared by injury, leaving the underlying tissue damage untreated. Zholudeva’s research seeks to address this gap by designing cell therapy approaches to repair the damaged spinal cord.
Using human induced and embryonic pluripotent stem cells, she is engineering human spinal interneurons, and testing their capacity to repair spinal cord injury. Her lab is interested in developing regenerative medicine approaches for injuries to the cervical spinal cord, which can result in paralysis and loss of respiratory control.
Professional Titles
Research Investigator, Gladstone Institutes
Bio
Lana Zholudeva, PhD, is a research investigator at Gladstone Institutes. She completed her PhD at Drexel University, where she investigated the repair potential of transplanted neural progenitor cells into the injured cervical spinal cord. At Gladstone, Zholudeva’s work has focused on engineering a specific subtype of human interneurons from human induced pluripotent stem cells, and testing their potential to restore respiratory function and upper limb control following cervical spinal cord injury.
Honors and Awards
2024 Distinguished Alumni Award, IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE), University of Nebraska Medical Center
2024 Travel Award, National Neurotrauma Society Meeting
2022 Trainee Professional Development Award, Society for Neuroscience
2022 Presidential Award for Excellence, American Society for Neural Therapy and Repair
2021 Distinguished Achievement in Scientific Leadership, Gladstone Institutes
2020 Robert and Linda Mahley Career Advancement Award, Gladstone Institutes
2019 Paul J. Reier Best Presentation in Neurotrauma, American Society for Neural Therapy and Repair
2019 Travel Award, American Spinal Injury Association
2018 Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy Student Excellence Award, Drexel University
Publications
Contact
Lana Zholudeva
Email