Yu Chen, PhD (UMCP) and Reha Erzurumlu, PhD (UMB)
Project Abstract
In sensory systems the specific external stimuli first activate the sensory epithelium. Primary sensory neurons convey the stimulus-related information to the central nervous system (CNS). Each sensory pathway has a distinct route along the CNS, ultimately landing in the neocortex, or the piriform cortex in the case of olfaction. There are a number of synaptic stations in between, and collections of neurons in each contribute to the distinct aspects of stimulus properties, eventually leading to the event wecall perception, at higher levels such as the sensory and association cortices. Therefore, it is important to have an understanding of how neural circuits at different levels of a given sensory system function in response to peripherally evoked sensory activity. The proposed work will establish a multifaceted imaging approach combined with optogenetics, which allows us to visualize activity of sensory neural circuits, in the living brain, simultaneously, and in three dimensions, following sensory stimulation.
Dr. Yu Chen received his BS in Physics from Peking University in 11297 and his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. From 2003-2007, he pursued his postdoctoral training at MIT. He became an Assistant Professor of the Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the University of Maryland in College Park in 2007 and became an Associate Professor since 2014.
Dr. Reha Erzurumlu received his BA in Philosophy from the University of Ankara, Turkey; MA in Psychology from Washington University in St Louis, and PhD in Biological Sciences from University of California, Irvine in 1982. From 1985-1987, he pursued postdoctoral training at Brown University and 1987-1990 at MIT. He was a Research Scientist at MIT between 1990-1994 and in 1994 became an Associate Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans.
Steven Jay, PhD (UMCP) and Junfang Wu, PhD (UMB)
Project Abstract
Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality and represents a significant public health problem in the USA. While many molecular and cell-based therapeutic approaches have been reported, few effective treatments have been translated and there remains a limited understanding of potential mechanisms that can be employed to reverse the neurological dysfunction and neuroinflammation associated with SCI. Chronic and persistent detrimental microglial phenotype continues for months to years after CNS trauma, associated with cell loss and chronic neurological dysfunction. Microglial activation in SCI is governed in part by microRNAs (miRs), a class of small (22 nucleotides) noncoding RNAs involved in the post-translational regulation of gene expression. Our pilot data show that SCI results in up-regulation of pro-inflammatory miR-155 and a concurrent down-regulation of miR-124 during the acute phase post-injury, leading predominantly to M1-like polarization of microglia. However, controlling miR expression in microglia (or any cell type) is non-trivial.
Steve Jay is an assistant professor in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the University of Maryland. After earning a B.S.B.E. in biological engineering from the University of Georgia (2004), he completed his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at Yale University (2009) under the guidance of Dr. Mark Saltzman (with current CBEE Prof Erin Lavik serving as a committee member).
Dr. Junfang Wu received a BM in Clinical Medicine and an MS in Pharmacology from Jiangxi Medical School, China, in 1986 and 1992; a PhD in Neuropharmacology from Nanjing Medical School, China, in 1995. Dr. Wu’s postdoctoral training took placeat the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China, and she completed training at NIH in 2005.
Hector Corrada Bravo, PhD (UMCP) and Bogdan Stoica, MD (UMB)
Project Abstract
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in both civilian and military populations. TBI represents a significant public health problem, with more than 1.7 million new cases annually in the United States alone. Persistent neuroinflammation following central nervous system (CNS) trauma may last for months and even years and may be responsible for chronic neurodegeneration and chronic neurological dysfunction. There is significant expansion of the lesion volume between one and three-month post-injury and neuroinflammation markers, including activated microglia, are detected chronically following TBI.
Héctor Corrada Bravo is an associate professor of computer science. He holds appointments in the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and UMIACS. His research focuses on statistical and machine learning methods for high-throughput genomic data analysis. This includes pre-processing of measurements from high-throughput assays, disease risk models that integrate high-throughput genomic and other data, and cancer epigenetics and biomarker discovery.
Bogdan Stoica, MD, is an associate professor of Anesthesiology and faculty member at the Center for Shock, Trauma and Anesthesiology Research (STAR) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Stoica received his MD from the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, Romania inin 1990. In 1992, Dr. Stoica received a Visiting Fellowship from the Fogarty International Center and started his postdoctoral training at the Laboratory of Immunobiology, Center of Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), Food and Drug Administration where he studied T cell signal transduction.
Mihai Pop, PhD (UMD) and David Loane, PhD (UMB)
Project Abstract
In recent years important discoveries have been made with regard to the role of the gut-brain axis in neurological health and disease. The gut-brain axis can be conceptualized as an integrative physiological model that incorporates afferent and efferent signals of neural, hormonal, and immunological origins, and dysfunctionof this axis can have pathophysiological consequences. The gut-brain axis is bidirectional, with each entity capable of modulating the health of the other in either direction.
Dr. Pop is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) and currently serves as Associate Chair for Undergraduate studies in the Computer Science Department, and as the Director of the Center for Health-related Informatics and Bioimaging. Dr. Pop received his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University where he focused on algorithms for computer graphics and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications.
Dr. Loane leads a multi-disciplinary research team dedicated to studying the complexities of TBI, neuroinflammation and tissue repair. Specifically, his research program investigates the activation status and functional role of resident microglia and infiltrating blood-borne monocytes in the TBI brain, and to determine how they contribute to chronic neurodegeneration and long-term neurological dysfunction after brain trauma.
Elizabeth Quinlan, MD (UMCP) and Victor Frenkel, PhD (UMB)
Project Abstract
Despite more than 30 failed phase III clinical trials, there is still no effective pharmacotherapy for traumatic brain injury (TBI). Failure of preventative therapeutic strategies has led to a focus on regenerative approaches. The goal of our MPower Pilot Grant is to investigate the potential use of transcranial, pulsed focused ultrasound (TCpFUS) to stimulate post-traumatic neurogenesis and synaptogenesis and improve cognitive function recovery in a clinically-relevant experimental model of moderate-to-severe TBI. We will optimize a TCpFUS treatment paradigm to improve functional recovery based on recently published studies indicating improvements in adult neurogenesis, altered neuroprotective microglial activation, and restoration of memory deficits. We hypothesize that TCpFUS-BBBD treatments will improve long-term cognitive function recovery following TBI in part by stimulating hippocampal neurogenesis and synaptogenesis in the injured cortex.
Dr. Quinlan is a neuroscientist who studies the impact of age and experience on the function of cortical circuits. She received a PhD in biology/neuroscience in 1993 from the University of Illinois at Chicago and postdoctoral training in neuroscience at the University of Virginia in the laboratory of Shelly Halpain, PhD, and Brown University in the laboratory of Mark Bear, PhD. She joined the faculty of the Department of Biology (CMNS) at UMCP in 2001, where she is currently a professor.
She is a founding member and director of the Physiological Systems graduate program at UMCP, serves on the executive committee of the Neuroscience and Cognitive Sciences Program (NACS/BSOS) and is a member of the Steering Committee of the campus wide Brain and Behavior Initiative. Dr. Quinlan is an associate editor at Visual Neuroscience. She has pioneered the use of sensory deprivation to promote plasticity and “rejuvenate” circuits in the mammalian cortex to recover function lost by disuse. This work was recognized in 2010 with The Advancement of Science Award, Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association.
Victor Frenkel was born in Montreal, Canada. After obtaining an Associate’s Degree in Physics, he moved to Israel, where he received a BS in Agriculture at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and an MS in Zoology at Tel Aviv University. This was followed by a Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute in Baltimore, MD, he spent eight years as a staff scientist at the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. Today, he is an Associate Professor of Radiology and Director of Translational Focused Ultrasound Research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD. His research interests revolve around understanding the interactions of ultrasound and biological systems and translating this knowledge to clinically relevant applications.