Dr. Christopher Cardozo, M.D.

Dr. Christopher Cardozo is a practicing physician specializing in Pulmonary Diseases, and a clinician scientist. He received his BS from the University of Wisconsin (Madison) College of Engineering and his MD from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He is Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Director of the Molecular Program of the Veterans Administration Rehabilitation Research and Development Service National Center for the Medical Consequences of Spinal Cord Injury (SCI), and Staff Physician at the James J. Peters VA.

The goal of his research is to improve the function and quality of life for persons with spinal cord injury by improving the understanding of the molecular mechanisms responsible for muscle atrophy and bone loss, understanding the barriers to neurorepair and neuroplasticity, and by developing and testing interventions. His work combines the power of mouse genetics and molecular biology to address several important questions pertinent to muscle loss and functional impairments after SCI. Active areas of investigation include investigation of the role of ryanodine receptor dysfunction in impairment of specific force generation after SCI, biological basis for the effect of age at the time of SCI to worsen outcomes, and exploring the role of connexin hemichannels in post-SCI muscle atrophy.

An additional area of investigation has been the role of the adaptor protein Numb in adult skeletal muscle. Current work in the lab is studying the role(s) of Numb in myocytes and muscle fibers using conditional, inducible knockouts and models of aging and muscle injury.