Svitlana Garbuzova-Davis, Ph.D, D.Sc is a Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair in the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida. Her research over the past twenty years has focused on development of cell therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. Her team has been investigating effects of stem cells from human umbilical cord blood (hUCB) transplanted into mouse models of ALS and Sanfilippo Syndrome Type B (MPS IIIB). Additionally, her team discovered blood-brain/spinal cord barrier (BBB/BSCB, together known as the blood-CNS-barrier) impairment in animal models and patients with ALS and MPS IIIB. She has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and more than 20 book chapters/proceedings and has numerous patents. Also, she serves as an editorial board member for several scientific journals and a reviewer for various national and international journals, NIH, and DOD review boards. As a PI on NIH R01 grants, her research built a foundation for effective treatment of neurodegenerative disease. She is a nationally and internationallyrecognized expert on the blood-CNS-barrier and has been an invited speaker on this topic at various scientific conferences. She has gained extensive expertise on CNS barrier function and emerging cellular, non-cellular, and protein-based therapies for barrier repair in ALS.