Sandra M. Garraway facts for kids

Sandra M. Garraway is a Canadian-American neuroscientist. A neuroscientist is a scientist who studies the brain and nervous system. She is a professor at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.

Dr. Garraway leads the Emory Multiplex Immunoassay Core (EMIC). Here, she helps other scientists use special tools to study tiny molecules in the body. Her main research focuses on how pain works in the spinal cord after an injury. She studies how the body becomes more sensitive to pain, which can lead to long-lasting pain.

Early Life and Education

Sandra Garraway started her studies at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, graduating in 1993. She then moved to Manitoba to continue her education at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.

There, she studied how brain cells in the spinal cord change and adapt. These cells are important for sending pain signals to the brain. She published four research papers during her PhD studies.

How Brain Cells Change with Pain

Dr. Garraway looked at how certain brain cells in the spinal cord react to signals. She studied how these cells can learn to be more or less active over time. This learning is called plasticity. It's like how your brain remembers things.

She found that these cells can change even with small signals. She also learned that in younger rats, only one type of change (called LTP) could happen. These discoveries help us understand how long-lasting pain, or chronic pain, might develop. It's like the cells remember the pain.

She also studied how a chemical called serotonin affects these brain cells. Serotonin is a chemical messenger in the body. She found that different types of serotonin receptors (parts of cells that receive serotonin signals) have different effects on pain signals. This research showed that targeting specific serotonin receptors could help control pain.

Understanding Pain Sensitivity

After her PhD, Dr. Garraway moved to the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She studied how a protein called BDNF affects pain. BDNF helps nerve cells grow and survive.

She found that BDNF can make the spinal cord more sensitive to pain. She also discovered that after a spinal cord injury, BDNF might not work as well. This could be why pain is harder to control after an injury.

Later, at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, she researched new ways to manage chronic pain. She worked on a new technology called siRNA. This technology can "turn off" specific genes. She used siRNA to reduce pain signals in rats. Her work suggested that this technology could be a new way to treat pain by reducing the genes that cause pain sensitivity.

Career and Research

In 2008, Dr. Garraway became a research professor at Texas A&M University. She studied how the spinal cord learns about pain. In 2014, she joined Emory University as an Assistant Professor of Physiology.

Today, she is the Scientific Director of the Emory Multiplex Immunoassay Core. She helps other scientists with their research. She also leads her own lab, the Garraway Lab.

The Garraway Lab studies why people develop chronic pain after spinal cord injuries. They look at how different parts of the nervous system work together to cause long-lasting pain. Their research is supported by important organizations like the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Garraway is also part of several groups that study pain. She works with the International Pain Research Forum and The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (TIRR) Foundation. These groups aim to find new treatments for pain.

BDNF and Pain

Dr. Garraway's research has shown how important BDNF is for pain. She found that when pain signals are strong, the amount of BDNF in the spinal cord can decrease.

Her team also discovered that BDNF can help with recovery from pain. For example, if rats learned how to avoid pain, their BDNF levels increased. When BDNF was given to rats experiencing uncontrollable pain, it helped them learn to avoid pain. This shows that BDNF is important for the brain's ability to adapt and recover from pain, especially after spinal cord injury.

TNF Alpha and Chronic Pain

Dr. Garraway also studies a protein called Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha (TNFa). She looks at how TNFa contributes to chronic pain.

In 2015, she found that TNFa levels increase after pain signals following a spinal cord injury. She also discovered that TNFa might harm nerve cells. In 2019, her team found that inflammation (swelling) in the body can make pain sensitivity worse after a spinal cord injury. They learned that TNFa plays a role in this early pain sensitivity.

Awards and Honors

• 2015 Department of Defense Congressional Directed Medical Research Programs Award
• 2014 Mission Connect Grant - The Institute for Rehabilitation Research