Faculty team receives award to study stroke research treatment

Jee-Yeon Hwang, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and neuroscience, Holly Stessman, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and neuroscience, and Gopal Jadhav, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and neuroscience, all in the School of Medicine, received an $848,188 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to study “TREM1 as a Novel Therapeutic Target for Global Ischemia Induced Neuroinflammation, Neuronal Death and Cognitive Deficits.”

The goal of the study is to identify therapeutic treatments for neurodegeneration and cognitive deficits associated with global cerebral ischemia – when blood flow to the brain is stopped or reduced – often triggered by cardiac arrest.

Some areas of the brain are highly susceptible to a lack of blood and oxygen supply, leading to long-term brain damage or dysfunction. One such area is the hippocampus, which has a crucial role in learning and memory. Even after recovery, memory loss and other cognitive dysfunctions may remain.

This NIH award aims to support the development of team science projects. In line with this objective, the research team consists of faculty with different expertise: Hwang, a neurobiologist; Jadhav, a medicinal chemist; and Stessman, a geneticist.

“The diverse expertise of our team enables us to collectively explore questions beyond the scope of our individual disciplines,” said Hwang. “This innovative team will provide synergistic collaboration to advance the understanding of the mechanisms underlying neuroinflammation in global ischemia pathology and, therefore, develop novel drugs to mitigate neurodegeneration and cognitive deficits following global ischemic insults.”