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Professor Geoffrey (Geoff) Raisman FRS (28 June 1939 – 27 January 2017) was a British neuroscientist. [1] [2]
He was born in Leeds and died in London. His parents were Harry and Celia Raisman, both also born in Leeds. Geoffrey's grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. He describes his family's story in his book, The Undark Sky. [3] Raisman was not religious. [4] He attended Roundhay School and Pembroke College, Oxford. [5]
He was chair of neural regeneration at University College London's Institute of Neurology. [6] [7] In 2014, his team claimed to have regrown nerve cells where they had been severed, restoring the damaged spinal cord of the Polish paraplegic Darek Fidyka. [8]
Paraplegia, or paraparesis, is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek (παραπληγίη) "half-stricken". It is usually caused by spinal cord injury or a congenital condition that affects the neural (brain) elements of the spinal canal. The area of the spinal canal that is affected in paraplegia is either the thoracic, lumbar, or sacral regions. If four limbs are affected by paralysis, tetraplegia or quadriplegia is the correct term. If only one limb is affected, the correct term is monoplegia. Spastic paraplegia is a form of paraplegia defined by spasticity of the affected muscles, rather than flaccid paralysis.
Sir Geoffrey William Hill, FRSL was an English poet, professor emeritus of English literature and religion, and former co-director of the Editorial Institute, at Boston University. Hill has been considered to be among the most distinguished poets of his generation and was called the "greatest living poet in the English language." From 2010 to 2015 he held the position of Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. Following his receiving the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in 2009 for his Collected Critical Writings, and the publication of Broken Hierarchies , Hill is recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry and criticism in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Albert Geoffrey Bayldon was an English actor. After playing roles in many stage productions, including the works of William Shakespeare, he became known for portraying the title role of the children's series Catweazle (1969–70). Bayldon's other long-running parts include the Crowman in Worzel Gummidge (1979–81) and Magic Grandad in the BBC television series Watch (1995).
Jamie Lawrence Ashdown is an English former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He spent a large part of his career at Portsmouth, for whom he made the majority of his professional appearances.
Edward Samuel Miliband is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero since July 2024. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband was Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition between 2010 and 2015. Alongside his brother, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, he served in the Cabinet from 2007 to 2010 under Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Massimo Cellino is an Italian entrepreneur and football club owner. Through his family trust Eleonora Sport Ltd, he is the owner of Italian club Brescia Calcio, and is the former owner of Italian club Cagliari, and English club Leeds United.
Lee Smith is an English former professional rugby league footballer who played as a goal-kicking centre, wing or fullback for the Leeds Rhinos in Betfred Super League.
Geoffrey Lilley Smith FRS FMedSci FRSB is a British virologist and medical research authority in the area of Vaccinia virus and the family of Poxviruses. Since 1 October 2011 he is head of the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge and a principal research fellow of the Wellcome Trust. Before that, he was head of the Department of Virology at Imperial College London.
Reverend Leslie Henry Hardman MBE HCF was an Orthodox Rabbi and the first Jewish British Army chaplain to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, an experience "that made him a public figure, both within his community and outside it".
Pontus Sven Gustav Jansson is a Swedish professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Malmö FF.
Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs), also known as olfactory ensheathing glia or olfactory ensheathing glial cells, are a type of macroglia found in the nervous system. They are also known as olfactory Schwann cells, because they ensheath the non-myelinated axons of olfactory neurons in a similar way to which Schwann cells ensheath non-myelinated peripheral neurons. They also share the property of assisting axonal regeneration.
Carolyne Underwood is a British television personality. She became paralysed in January 2007 when she had spinal cord lesion after a blood vessel burst in her back while she slept.
Kemar Roofe is a professional footballer who most recently played as a forward for Scottish Premiership club Rangers. Born in England, he represents the Jamaican national team.
Dariusz "Darek" Fidyka is a Polish firefighter and recovering paraplegic who became the first person in history to verifiably recover sensory and motor function after the complete severing of his spinal cord.
Paweł Tabakow is a Polish neurosurgeon who is known for prepared and performing the operation that allowed Darek Fidyka to recover sensory and motor function after the complete severing of his spinal cord. Tabakow has claimed that an Indian ambassador and other people from round the world have contacted him about performing similar treatments.
Spinal cord injury research seeks new ways to cure or treat spinal cord injury in order to lessen the debilitating effects of the injury in the short or long term. There is no cure for SCI, and current treatments are mostly focused on spinal cord injury rehabilitation and management of the secondary effects of the condition. Two major areas of research include neuroprotection, ways to prevent damage to cells caused by biological processes that take place in the body after the injury, and neuroregeneration, regrowing or replacing damaged neural circuits.
Alan Mackay-Sim was an Australian biomedical scientist specialising in adult stem cell research, and winner of the 2017 Australian of the Year. Some of his research focused on olfactory ensheathing cells, which are cells in the human nose that interact with the nervous system to cause a sense of smell.
Sir Abraham Jeremy Raisman, GCMG, GCIE, KCSI was a British administrator in India and banker. He was Finance Member of the Government of India from 1939 to 1945.
The city of Leeds, in West Yorkshire, England has a Jewish community, where many notable people originated or settled. They have played a major part in the clothing trade, the business, professional and academic life of the City, and the wider world. The community numbers now fewer than 7,000 people.