Jean Peduzzi-Nelson
Narrative Bio
Early in my career, I focused on nervous system development. Later, I began working with another faculty member who was developing a treatment for chronic, severe spinal cord injury (SCI). My moderate interest in research changed into an obsession to help these people with SCI and brain injury. Most people with SCI have chronic injuries and demonstrate little improvement with rehabilitation. After many years of limited success, I invited a clinician from Portugal who was starting a pilot clinical study using pieces of olfactory mucosa grafted into the cystic cavity of people with chronic, severe SCI. During his visit, we implanted olfactory tissue into rats with chronic, severe SCI. Much to my surprise, these rats improved more than any of rats that I did using other treatments for the previous 6 years so I was convinced that the olfactory mucosa stem cells were a promising treatment. In examining the clinical data, it was obvious that the rehabilitation program was critical to obtain improvement.
In the last 10 years, I have been invited to an international research conference, received WSU and SOM teaching awards, and testified at US Senate committees.
Academic Rank
Associate Professor (Secondary Appointment)