Chia-Yi “Alex” Kuan, MD, PhD, a professor in the Department of Neuroscience, was recently awarded two NIH R01 grants to study the mechanisms and monitoring methods of two types of neonatal brain injury, namely inflammation-sensitized stroke and birth asphyxia (hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy). It is a truth universally acknowledged that newborn brains are not the miniature of adult brains, but with unique physiology and responses to acute injury and requiring tailored treatments. In one project which received the one-percentile top score, Dr. Kuan and his collaborator Katia Sol-Church, PhD, professor of pathology and director of Genome Analysis & Technology Core in the School of Medicine, will explore the roles of neutrophils and monocytes in inflammation-sensitized stroke in murine neonates.
In the other project, Dr. Kuan and Song Hu, PhD, co-principal investigator and associate professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University at St. Louis, will use photoacoustic microscopy to detect, for the first time, the alterations of cerebral oxygen metabolism in awake mouse neonates during and after hypoxia-ischemia, and correlate the changes with functional outcomes plus mitochondrial derangements. Outcomes of these studies may impact the clinical management of neonates that are stressed by acute brain injury.
For award details, see NIH REPORTER:
https://reporter.nih.gov/search/tc5PnW79s0uwHPz-rf4nhA/project-details/10529933
https://reporter.nih.gov/search/tc5PnW79s0uwHPz-rf4nhA/project-details/10533435