About Song Laboratory

The Song Lab is based in the Raymond G. Perelman Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics, which is dedicated to the understanding, development, and application of gene and related cell and nucleic acid therapies. The Lab's major translational goal is to develop therapeutic strategies, utilizing the targets identified from mechanistic studies, for treating patients with neural injury, stroke, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Damage to the adult central nervous system, such as spinal cord injury, often leads to persistent deficits due to the inability of mature axons to regenerate after injury. Under pathological situations such as multiple sclerosis, the second most common neurological disorder leading to disability in young adults, the failure of damaged axons to regenerate contributes to non-reversible neurologic dysfunction.

Currently, only a few therapies with limited efficacy are available, highlighting the urgent need to identify novel molecular targets and develop targeted therapies. What is also lacking is a systematic way to dissect the pathways underlying the four steps of axon regeneration, namely degeneration/debris clearance, regrowth, overcoming the hostile environment, and re-building connectivity.