Jacquelyn Cragg wins Branco Weiss Fellowship

Jacquelyn Cragg, ICORD Postdoctoral Fellow has won the Society in Science – Branco Weiss Fellowship for her postdoctoral studies.

Jacquelyn Cragg

She joins physicists, biologists, social scientists, and other researchers from around the world in accepting the prestigious award given by ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). She was the only recipient this year from Canada.

This fellowship will support Dr. Cragg’s research in spinal cord injury for up to five years. She will be investigating whether pain medication can alter the course of neurological recovery. Her previous research found that patients receiving anticonvulsants, a class of medications used to manage neuropathic pain, achieved greater recovery of muscle strength compared to patients administered other types of medications.

“There could be treatments for neurological diseases right under our nose. We just aren’t looking,”

Dr. Cragg completed her PhD in UBC’s School of Population and Public Health in 2015 under the supervision of ICORD Principal Investigator Dr. Jaimie Borisoff and Dr. David Patrick. She then went on to complete postdoctoral work with Dr. Marc Weisskopf (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) and Dr. Neil Cashman (UBC Division of Neurology). She has also won awards from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, ALS Society of Canada, American Spinal Injury Association, and many others.