Research
The Poplawski lab focuses on the development of regenerative and diagnostic strategies for neurodegenerative diseases. Our main focus is to enhance nerve regeneration following spinal cord injury via two strategies: (1) cell therapies within the injured spinal cord and (2) gene therapies within the motor cortex in the brain. In a second line of research, we seek to develop assays that can accurately diagnose the severity of acute and chronic injuries to the brain, specifically dementia and neurotrauma.
Biography
Dr. Gunnar Poplawski specializes in neurodegenerative disorders, using a multifaceted approach to investigate regenerative strategies for CNS injury and biomarker discovery for neurodegenerative disorders. His research centers on disorders such as dementia - including Alzheimer’s disease - and neurotrauma - including spinal cord injury - for which he seeks to develop therapies and utilize assays to help determine the severity of such conditions.
Poplawski joins the Cleveland Clinic after spending time in Singapore, during which he completed fellowships at both Duke-NUS Medical School and the National University of Singapore (NUS). He received his PhD from the University of California Department of Biology and went on to complete his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) in the Center for Neural Repair, under the guidance of Professor Mark Tuszynski, MD, PhD. Poplawski has also published in high impact journals such as Nature, Science Translational Medicine, and Neuron.
Education & Professional Highlights
Appointed
2022
Education and Fellowships
Fellowship - Duke-NUS Medical School
Senior Research Fellow
Singapore
2022
Fellowship - National University of Singapore
Senior Research Fellow
Singapore
2020
Fellowship - University of California, San Diego
Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Neural Repair
San Diego, CA USA
2017
Graduate - University of California, San Diego
Biology
San Diego, CA USA
2014
Graduate - Scripps Research
Biology
La Jolla, CA USA
2007
Graduate - University of Hamburg
Biochemistry
Hamburg, Germany
2005
Awards & Honors
- Best Overall Presentation, Neuroscience Singapore 2020 Virtual Symposium
- Oral Presentation Award, Annual Biomedical Scientific Congress, National University of Singapore
- Travel Award, Wolfgang Hillen Summer School
- Travel Award, CSH Axon Guidance, Synapse Formation and Regeneration Meeting
- Friends of the International Center Scholar, University of California San Diego
- DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Scholar, University of Michigan
Memberships
- International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV)
2018-present - Society for Clinical Research and Translation of Extracellular Vesicles Singapore (SOCRATES)
2018-present - Society for Neuroscience (SFN)
2007-present
Research
Overview
The Poplawski lab focuses on developing therapies that can help patients with spinal cord injuries to regain mobility after suffering from paralysis. We use both cell culture and mouse models to discover mechanisms that could be beneficial for such patients; more specifically, we attempt to identify mechanisms that promote the regeneration of injured nerve fibers.
Our work centers around three main areas:
- Cell therapies: Grafting cells into sites of spinal cord injury that can provide the right environment for injured nerve fibers to grow
- Gene therapies: Manipulation of specific genes in the injured nerve cells that can promote growth
- Diagnostics: Development of clinically relevant biomarkers that accurately identify the severity of neurodegenerative disorders
Investigating these areas will help us to bridge spinal cord injury sites with the help of cellular grafts, establishing a patient’s functional recovery from injury.
Our Team
Selected Publications
View publications for Gunnar Poplawski, PhD
(Disclaimer: This search is powered by PubMed, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. PubMed is a third-party website with no affiliation with Cleveland Clinic.)
Poplawski, G. H., Kawaguchi, R., Van Niekerk, E., Lu, P., Mehta, N., Canete, P., ... & Tuszynski, M. H. (2020). Injured adult neurons regress to an embryonic transcriptional growth state. Nature, 581(7806), 77-82.
Poplawski, G.H.D., Tuszynski, M. (2020). Regeneration of Corticospinal Axons into Neural Progenitor Cell Grafts After Spinal Cord Injury. Neuroscience Insights, 581(7806):77-82.
Grunwald, H. A., Gantz, V. M., Poplawski, G., Xu, X. R. S., Bier, E., & Cooper, K. L. (2019). Super-Mendelian inheritance mediated by CRISPR–Cas9 in the female mouse germline. Nature, 566(7742), 105-109.
Poplawski, G. H. D., Lie, R., Hunt, M., Kumamaru, H., Kawaguchi, R., Lu, P., Schäfer, M. K. E., Woodruff, G., Robinson, J., Canete, P., Dulin, J. N., Geoffroy, C. G., Menzel, L., Zheng, B., Coppola, G., & Tuszynski, M. H. (2018). Adult rat myelin enhances axonal outgrowth from neural stem cells. Science translational medicine, 10(442), eaal2563.
Poplawski, G., Ishikawa, T., Brifault, C., Lee-Kubli, C., Regestam, R., Henry, K. W., Shiga, Y., Kwon, H., Ohtori, S., Gonias, S. L., & Campana, W. M. (2018). Schwann cells regulate sensory neuron gene expression before and after peripheral nerve injury. Glia, 66(8), 1577–1590.
Patel, A., Li, Z., Canete, P., Strobl, H., Dulin, J., Kadoya, K., Gibbs, D., & Poplawski, G. H. D. (2018). AxonTracer: a novel ImageJ plugin for automated quantification of axon regeneration in spinal cord tissue. BMC neuroscience, 19(1), 8.
Dulin, J. N., Adler, A. F., Kumamaru, H., Poplawski, G. H. D., Lee-Kubli, C., Strobl, H., Gibbs, D., Kadoya, K., Fawcett, J. W., Lu, P., & Tuszynski, M. H. (2018). Injured adult motor and sensory axons regenerate into appropriate organotypic domains of neural progenitor grafts. Nature communications, 9(1), 84.
Kadoya, K., Lu, P., Nguyen, K., Lee-Kubli, C., Kumamaru, H., Yao, L., Knackert, J., Poplawski, G., Dulin, J.N., Strobl, H., Takashima, Y., Biane, J., Conner, J., Zhang, SC., & Tuszynski, M. H. (2016). Spinal cord reconstitution with homologous neural grafts enables robust corticospinal regeneration. Nature medicine, 22(5), 479-487.
Lu, P., Woodruff, G., Wang, Y., Graham, L., Hunt, M., Wu, D., Boehle, E., Ahmad, R., Poplawski, G., Brock, J., Goldstein, L.S.B., & Tuszynski, M. H. (2014). Long-distance axonal growth from human induced pluripotent stem cells after spinal cord injury. Neuron, 83(4), 789-796.
Poplawski, G. H., Tranziska, A. K., Leshchyns'ka, I., Meier, I. D., Streichert, T., Sytnyk, V., & Schachner, M. (2012). L1CAM increases MAP2 expression via the MAPK pathway to promote neurite outgrowth. Molecular and cellular neurosciences, 50(2), 169–178.
Dehmelt, L., Poplawski, G., Hwang, E., & Halpain, S. (2011). NeuriteQuant: an open source toolkit for high content screens of neuronal morphogenesis. BMC neuroscience, 12, 100.
Patents
| US Patent | Patent Title | Issue Date | First-Named Inventor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20200352143 | Method to implement a crispr gene drive in mammals | 11/12/2020 | Kimberly Cooper |
Careers
The Poplawski lab is actively seeking applicants for laboratory technicians, graduate students, and postdoctoral/clinical fellows. Experience with molecular biology techniques, immunohistochemistry, microscopy, cell culture and mouse surgeries is advantageous but not required. Applicants should send a cover letter summarizing research experience and future goals, their CV, and contact information for 3-5 references to Dr. Gunnar Poplawski at [email protected].