Dr. Ina-Beate Wanner is an Associate Research Neuroscientist faculty member in the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (IDDRC), at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior of the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine.
Education: Dr. Wanner received her training in Germany, at the University of Hohenheim, where she graduated with a Masters’ Degree in Biology, major neurophysiology. She obtained her PhD in Human Biology from the University of Ulm in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, where she discovered local protein synthesis as a mechanism of plasticity in the cerebellum. Dr. Wanner had two post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics and at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis where she worked on neuron-glial interactions for regeneration after spinal cord injury.
Collaborations: A signature of Dr. Wanner’s scientific career has been her initiation and successful lead of interdisciplinary collaborations with chemists, neuro-radiologists, aeromedical engineers and clinicians in Italy, Canada, in the UK and in the US.
Research: Dr. Wanner’s translational research goal is a deeper understanding of cellular injury mechanisms to improve diagnosis and recovery of patients with traumatic spinal cord or brain injuries. Her present research focuses on injury responses of astrocytes, the caretakers of nerve cells, to traumatic injuries. The Wanner team discovered large-scale protein release into fluids from metabolically compromised cells and identified signatures of wounded and dying astrocytes after traumatic injury (Published Patent application: “Traumatome and Neurotrauma biomarkers” (WIPO patentscope link). Dr. Wanner and her team selected novel biomarkers and documented the markers’ diagnostic potential for patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and concussions even in the absence of visible wounds on CAT scans (see Publications). The Wanner team and partners Drs. Kuluz and Mayer & Meier detected brain injuries in serum samples of children and athletes with concussions. With her novel biomarkers the Wanner team recently achieved predicting recovery from paralysis after swine spinal cord injury just minutes after the contusion. Dr. Wanner pursues a unique translational approach going from bench to bedside by taking laboratory discoveries to develop clinical diagnostic tools. She also applies clinically useful markers to improve preclinical studies and hopes to continue to push the boundaries of translational science in the future to help neurotrauma patients on their recovery journey.
