Larry Benowitz

Larry Benowitz, PhD

Neurosurgical Innovation and Research Endowed Professor, Boston Children's Hospital; Professor of Neurosurgery and Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School

Research Focus

Rewiring of neural connections after brain injury

Brief Research Description

Dr. Benowitz's research primary focus is to improve outcome after injury to the central nervous system (CNS). They use biochemical, genetic, and cellular tools to (a) identify the receptor and downstream mechanisms through which oncomodulin and other inflammation-derived factors induce axon regeneration, (b) investigate the inter-cellular signaling pathways that become activated in the retina after optic nerve injury that lead to zinc elevation, and the downstream pathways that suppress RGC survival and axon regeneration; and (c) the gene expression program underlying optic nerve regeneration, and the transcription factors that regulate these changes (with investigators at UCLA and Stanford). Novel trophic factors, intracellular signaling pathways, and transcription factors discovered through their research in neural repair are all potential candidates to promote neural reorganization in developmental disabilities.

Key Publications (PMCIDs)

Advances in optic nerve regeneration.
Benowitz LI, He Z, Goldberg JL
Exp Neurol. 2017 Jan;287(Pt 3):365-373. doi: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2015.12.015. Epub 2015 Dec 31. PMID: 26746987

Mobile zinc increases rapidly in the retina after optic nerve injury and regulates ganglion cell survival and optic nerve regeneration.
Li Y, Andereggen L, Yuki K, Omura K, Yin Y, Gilbert HY, Erdogan B, Asdourian MS, Shrock C, de Lima S, Apfel UP, Zhuo Y, Hershfinkel M, Lippard SJ, Rosenberg PA, Benowitz L.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2017;114(2):E209-E18. PMCID: PMC5240690

A Systems-Level Analysis of the Peripheral Nerve Intrinsic Axonal Growth Program.
Chandran V, Coppola G, Nawabi H, Omura T, Versano R, Huebner EA, Zhang A, Costigan M, Yekkirala A, Barrett L, Blesch A, Michaelevski I, Davis-Turak J, Gao F, Langfelder P, Horvath S, He Z, Benowitz L, Fainzilber M, Tuszynski M, Woolf CJ, Geschwind DH.
Neuron 2016;89(5):956-70. PMCID: PMC4790095

Reassembly of Excitable Domains after CNS Axon Regeneration.
Marin MA, de Lima S, Gilbert HY, Giger RJ, Benowitz L, Rasband MN.
J Neurosci 2016;36(35):9148-60. PMCID: PMC5005724

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