After graduating from the NIH OxCam program in 2007, with a landmark paper in Nature describing the discovery of a new type of stem cell called the epiblast stem cell, Dr. Paul Tesar continued his training as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Tesar then went on to join Case Western Reserve University (his alma mater) School of Medicine faculty in 2010. As an associate professor, his laboratory has “pioneered new regenerative approaches to treat nervous system disorders including multiple sclerosis, pediatric leukodystrophies, cerebral palsy, and brain cancer.
In addition to mentoring students and postdocs, Dr. Tesar’s team has gone on to become leaders in their field. Dr. Tesar has received numerous awards including the International Society for Stem Cell Research Outstanding Young Investigator Award in 2015, the New York Stem Foundation – Robertson Stem Cell Prize in 2017, and the Diekhoff Award for Graduate Student Mentoring in 2018.
Dr. Tesar’s lab continues to strive for success and their most recent collaboration with Dr. Drew Adams’ lab resulted in an exciting publication in the journal Nature: https://go.nature.com/2LFAbFe. This publication defined a unifying mechanism by which small molecules stimulate the generation of new oligodendrocytes and enhance remyelination. Because of these findings, efforts to develop safe and effective medicines for patients with Multiple Sclerosis and other myelin disorders are on the horizon. These discoveries led Dr. Tesar and Dr. Adams to form a startup company called Convelo Theraputics, which will develop new regenerative medicines for myelin disorders. To learn more about this incredible company check out this link: https://bit.ly/2uPwYcR.