Donovan Smith

Biography

About me

My name is Donovan Smith, and I am a Neuroscience PhD student studying at the University of Calgary. I am born and raised in Calgary, and have completed all of my schooling to date here in this amazing city. For my undergrad, I received a BSc with First-Class Honours in Biomechanics, coming out of the Kinesiology program. My undergraduate research helped to develop a finite-element model of the rabbit tibia that can be used to accurately predict bone stress and strain during compressive and torsional loading. This model provides researchers with an accurate estimate of how repetitive loading can lead to stress fracture in humans, as rabbit bones closely resemble the structure and composition of human bones. I then went on to receive my MSc in Neuroscience, where my work focused on quantifying upper-extremity motor impairments following stroke using the Kinarm robotic exoskeleton, providing the first in-depth, longitudinal analysis of impairments in the less-affected (ipsilesional) arm throughout the subacute phase of post-stroke recovery. Outside of academia, I love to play squash, read fiction novels, watch movies, play guitar, and cook.

My research

I am currently working under the supervision of Drs. Aaron Phillips and Sean Dukelow, where my research focuses on blood pressure control after spinal cord injury. I do both clinical and preclinical research; on the clinical side I help with the ongoing HEMO trial, a multisite clinical trial that utilizes electrical stimulation of the spine to help restore blood pressure control in humans following severe spinal cord injury. With my preclinical work, I am using rodent models of spinal cord injury to try and determine the specific neuronal subpopulations in the spine that control blood pressure. Taken together, my PhD research aims to address the often under-appreciated issue of blood pressure instability following spinal cord injury, a condition patients living with spinal cord injury often rank as more important than being able to walk again.

BRAIN CREATE program aspirations

Through the BRAIN CREATE program, I hope to partake in an academic exchange to Geneva, Switzerland, and work under the supervision of Dr. Gregoire Courtine, a collaborator of Dr. Phillips and researcher in the field of spinal cord injury. I also hope to gain knowledge of commercialization for research, with the aim of using my work to build an impactful company that can further spinal cord injury treatment through novel therapeutic methods like opto- and chemogenetics.

Commercialization

My preclinical project is quite mechanistic in nature and therefore is difficult to commercialize, but I feel if I am able to determine the specific neuronal subpopulations that control blood pressure, there are implications for future research and therapeutics which can try and specifically target only the neurons needed to maintain blood pressure after spinal cord injury, eliminating unwanted side effects or off-target stimulation that can occur with non-specific electric stimulation.

Publications

1.Smith, D., Scott, S. H., Semrau, J. A., and Dukelow, S. P. (2023). Impairments of the Ipsilesional Upper-Extremity in the First 6-Months Post-Stroke. Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation (Under Review).

2.Smith, D., Miller, R. and Lee, J.B. (2022). Can vagus nerve recordings shed light on autonomic dysfunction in spinal cord injury?. J Physiol, 600: 4973-4975. https://doi.org/10.1113/JP283815

3.Haider, I. T., Lee, M., Page, R., Smith, D., and Edwards, W. B. (2021). Mechanical fatigue of whole rabbit-tibiae under combined compression-torsional loading is better explained by strained volume than peak strain magnitude. Journal of Biomechanics, 122, 110434.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiomech.2021.110434

4.Miller, R. R., Tso, M. M., Rimok, J., and Smith, D. B. (2023) Collateral connectivity of the sympathetic nervous system. J Physiol. https://doi.org/10.1113/JP284933

Awards

Brain CREATE PhD Funding

Between Friends Bright Futures Honorarium

Jason Lang Scholarship (3x)

Undergraduate Merit Award