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| Name |
Bjorklund, Anders |
| Location
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Lund University |
| Primary Field
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Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience |
| Secondary Field
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Systems Neuroscience |
 Election Citation
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Björklund has led the field of neural transplantation both experimentally and intellectually for the last 25 years, providing the most convincing evidence that fetal neural tissue can be transplanted, survive and function in specific regions of the adult damaged brain, first in animal disease models and then in humans. |
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Research Interests
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Anders Björklund is Professor at the Wallenberg Neuroscience Center at the University of Lund. His research has been concerned with restorative and neuroprotective mechanisms in the CNS using cell replacement and gene transfer techniques. In the 1980ies his group pioneered studies of neural transplantation to the brain, and developed techniques for cell replacement in Parkinson's disease. Over the last 20 years the neural transplantation program at Lund University has been one of the leading clinical programs for the development of restorative therapies in Parkinson's disease. During the last decade Björklund´s lab has pioneered the use of the recombinant AAV and lentiviral vectors for neurotrophic factor delivery to the brain. His lab has been in the forefront of the development of GDNF (Glial cell-line Derived Neurotrophic Factor) as a neuroprotective and restorative factor for the nigrostriatal dopamine system and its application in Parkinson's disease, and in the use of AAV vectors for the overexpression of Alpha-synuclein for induction of Parkinson-like neuropathology in the nigrostriatal system. Current research at the Wallenberg Neuroscience Center is focussed on the the development of transplantable dopamine neurons from stem cells, and the use of viral vector-mediated gene transfer for neuroprotection and brain repair, with the aim to develop new restorative therapies for Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. |
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