项目介绍

2024年11月19日

Acute traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is a severe neurological condition caused by mechanical trauma that results in severe motor loss (i.e., paralysis), impaired sensation, and autonomic dysfunction. Degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) can show similar symptoms and is related to chronic progressive spinal canal stenosis. The resulting lifelong deficits associated with paralysis and sensory loss have a substantial effect on individuals, caregivers, and society. Timely and sufficient surgical decompression is a critical objective with many pre-clinical and clinical studies focused on surgical timing. However, quantifying the degree of cord compression and providing intraoperative guidance in decompression surgery remains a challenge. New diagnostic approaches are needed to improve treatment decisions. Measurement of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) dynamics is a potential tool to reduce these diagnostic gaps. As part of an international translational-clinical network, CSF pressure will be monitored in patients undergoing surgery, at bedside, and in a large-animal model. This cutting-edge research has the potential to improve care for patients with SCI and DCM.

Your responsibilities

Your goal is to have an immediate impact on the lives of patients. You are intrigued by the potential of combining neuroimaging and biomechanical proxies for evaluating spinal cord compression.

Your profile

You have a background in biomedical engineering, physiology with technical know-how in data acquisition, or a comparable background. You are comfortable with working alongside medical doctors in the operating theater, with veterinarians for data acquisition on large animals, and in consultation with engineers on the analysis of image and signal analysis. You are open to spending part of your PhD with the collaborators in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Information on your application

Our team consists of the Spinal Cord Injury Center Group at Balgrist University Hospital (https://www.sci-research.uzh.ch/en/aboutus.html) and The Interface Group at the University of Zurich (interfacegroup.ch). The Spinal Cord Injury Center provides highly specialized treatment for spinal cord injury patients by an interdisciplinary team of surgeons and neurologists. The Interface Group provides a creative, cross-disciplinary international work environment with outstanding infrastructure for computational research in biomedicine, physiology and biophysics. This unique constellation of clinical and basic sciences enables fast translation of research findings to benefit patients.

Further information

Questions about the job

Carl Moritz ZipserPD Dr. Zipser is a senior consultant at the Center for Paraplegia and in the Department of Neurology and Neurophysiology