Associate Professor Stuart Hodgetts

Dr Stuart Hodgetts is currently a Research Associate Professor at the Spinal Cord Repair Laboratory, within the School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia (UWA).

He was awarded his PhD in 1993 (in immunology, cell biology and molecular biology) at the University of Essex and initially conducted postdoctoral research in the field of autoimmunity/immunobiology, including a 2.5 year post at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, USA, working on immunological gene transcription. Dr Hodgetts then spent seven years with the Muscle Research Team at UWA's School of Anatomy & Human Biology, studying myoblast transfer therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

In 2003, Dr Hodgetts began collaborating with Dr Giles Plant, changing fields to apply his expertise to spinal cord repair. He is particularly interested in the use of adult mesenchymal human bone marrow stromal stem cells (hBMSC) and also the application of immune modulation of the host response to improve donor cell survival in treatments for spinal cord repair. Recent NRP-funded studies in these techniques have resulted in important advances, impressing external reviewers and attracting a further major NRP grant.

With Dr Plant now based at Stanford University (USA), Dr Hodgetts has taken over at the helm of the Spinal Cord Repair Laboratory. He is now adding immuno-modulation techniques to the suite of combinatorial therapies (including hBMSC transplantation) that are known to trigger neuro-regeneration and functional recovery after SCI.

Dr Hodgetts was awarded the inaugural NRP Mid-Career Research Fellowship to support and enable the expansion of his work in SCI during 2011-2013.