GAP project addresses one of the most complex challenges in neuroscience: providing the instructions that enable damaged nervous tissue to rebuild its connections. Neurons must extend their projections—axons—in order to establish the correct connections. Axon navigation is a crucial step in repair: building a functional nervous system means instructing some axons where to regenerate and others where not to go. If these instructions are incorrect, functional neural circuits cannot form.
Current technologies do not allow effective guidance of axonal growth within nervous tissue. GAP therefore proposes an innovative solution: engineering neurons with “macromolecular switches” to create a “molecular map” that directs them along the correct path, paving the way for new therapeutic strategies to address spinal cord injuries, brain lesions, and neurodegenerative diseases.