Wolfram Tetzlaff

Wolfram Tetzlaff

ICORD

Wolfram obtained his MD degree in Germany and his PhD in Calgary followed by faculty appointments at the University of Calgary, Ottawa and British Columbia (UBC), where he holds the John and Penny Ryan BC Leadership Chair in Spinal Cord Injury Research.  He serves as the Director of ICORD, the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries, a multidisciplinary center for spinal cord injury research in Vancouver, BC.  In his own laboratory, Dr. Tetzlaff leads a research program focusing on spinal cord injury modeling in rodents and experimental strategies for neuroprotection and neural repair after spinal cord injury. His group found that diets affect the cascades of secondary damage after spinal cord injury and can improve outcomes. In particular, intermittent fasting or Ketogenic Diet, even when initiated after SCI, improved outcome from spinal cord injury in rats and elicited neuroprotective effects.  Another focus of his laboratory is on neural repair, in particular using 1) transplantation of skin progenitor cell-derived Schwann cells into the injured spinal cord and 2) and approaches to stimulate a regenerative response from endogenous stem cells.  

Dr. Tetzlaff’s work is funded by the Craig H Neilsen Foundation, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Wings for Life, Spinal Research and the MS Society of Canada.

View Lab Page