 My name is Dr. Sarah Hemley and I'm from Macquarie University. My research focuses on a spinal cord disorder that occurs in people with spinal cord injury. In this disorder fluid field cysts form in the spinal cord and over time they get bigger and as they do so they cause damage to the surrounding spinal cord tissue and this causes pain and even paralysis. In our lab we're interested in finding out what causes this condition to occur in the first place and it's hoped that if we can understand these aspects of the conditions we can develop better treatments for it in the future.