Ludwig Aigner

Ludwig Aigner, Ph.D., Dr. Aigner is a neuroscientist that has made major contributions in the field of brain and spinal cord regeneration over the last 25 years. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Basel, Switzerland, where he was the first to demonstrate that nerve fiber growth can be re-induced in the adult central nervous system through the expression of a certain protein. He moved on to Montreal, Canada, where he did a three-year postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Albert Aguayo, demonstrating that a viral gene transfer of a neurotrophic factor was able to rescue damaged neurons in the retina. After that, he moved to the University of Regensburg, Germany, to explore the fascinating issue of adult neural stem cells with the possibility to generate new neurons in the adult, aged, and diseased brain. He was the first to develop tools to visualize neurogenesis in living animals and identified signaling mechanisms that are crucially involved in limiting brain regeneration. One of these mechanisms, leukotriene signaling, is related to asthma. In consequence, Dr. Aigner and his team recently demonstrated that the anti-asthmatic drug Montelukast structurally and functionally rejuvenates the aged brain. His main aim is to develop molecular and cellular therapies for patients with neurodegenerative diseases and for the aged population. Dr. Aigner is currently a Professor and Head of the Institute of Molecular Regenerative Medicine at the Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg, Austria. He is President of the Austrian Neuroscience Association and a scientific board member of the Wings For Life spinal cord injury foundation. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals.