Paul J. Tesar is an American developmental biologist. He is the Dr. Donald and Ruth Weber Goodman Professor of Innovative Therapeutics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. His research is focused on regenerative medicine.

Early life and education

Tesar was born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. He graduated with a BSc in biology from

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

in 2003. As part of the National Institutes of Health Oxford-Cambridge Scholar Program, he earned a PhD in 2007.

Career

While a graduate student, Tesar published a paper describing epiblast-derived stem cells, a new type of pluripotent stem cell, research for which he received both the Beddington Medal of the British Society for Developmental Biology and the Harold M. Weintraub Award of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. In 2010 he returned to Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine to teach. In 2014 he was appointed to the Dr. Donald and Ruth Weber Goodman

chair A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. They may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in vario ...

in innovative therapeutics.

Research

Tesar developed methods to generate and grow oligodendrocytes and oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) from pluripotent stem cells and skin cells. He also made human brain organoids containing human myelin, called oligocortical spheroids. Tesar identified drugs that stimulate myelin regeneration and reverse paralysis in mice with

multiple sclerosis Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This d ...

. Tesar also identified

CRISPR CRISPR () (an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of bacte ...

and antisense oligonucleotide therapeutics that restored myelination and extended the lifespan of mice with Pelizaeus–Merzbacher disease.

Awards

* Beddington Medal from the British Society for Developmental Biology *

Harold M. Weintraub Harold M. "Hal" Weintraub was an American scientist who lived from 1945 until his death in 1995 from an aggressive brain tumor. Only 49 years old, Weintraub left behind a legacy of research. Early life and education Born on June 2, 1945, in ...

Award * Outstanding Young Investigator Award, International Society for Stem Cell Research * Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tesar, Paul J. American medical researchers Stem cell researchers Living people Case Western Reserve University faculty 1981 births Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford