Joanna Stanicka was a research fellow in Prof. Zhigang He laboratory in Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, which discovered PTEN-deletion induced regeneration after optic nerve and spinal cord injury. More recently, this lab also found that KCC2 can restore stepping ability in mice after a spinal cord injury. For the past 7 years, Dr. Stanicka has been studying the signaling pathways that control and stimulate the phenomenon of cell growth in healthy and diseased states. She investigated the molecular mechanisms responsible for cancer, neuroprotection and neuroregeneration. Throughout her career, from undergraduate to postdoctoral research fellow, she has been always interested in how genes and proteins impact the healthy and disease states of the cell and how to apply this knowledge to develop treatments for patients. She has a vision to develop effective treatments for spinal cord injury, and other currently incurable neurological diseases, by using her strong multidisciplinary training in genetics, biochemistry, cell biology and neuroscience, combined with her natural leadership and management skills.