Leaderboard

As a third-year PhD student, my work is focused on investigating neurodegeneration in an Alzheimer's disease (AD) mouse model. AD is characterized by the progressive accumulation of amyloid plaques, tau tangles, and neuronal death. While much attention has been directed towards targeting neurotoxic extracellular amyloid accumulations, the recently approved therapy, "Lecanamab," has only shown modest efficacy in slowing cognitive decline. Therefore, there remains a significant unmet need for therapies that can effectively reduce or delay disease progression. In my research at Dr. Oswald's Steward's lab, we are shifting our focus towards neuron-intrinsic interventions, aiming to reduce neurons' vulnerability to degeneration. The lab has previously published on the ability to induce neuronal growth in adult neurons by activation of the mTOR pathway. This led to our interest in inducing cell growth as a potential neuroprotective method in the context of Alzheimer's disease. The idea is that by reverting neurons to a cell growth state, a "youthful" state, this may lead to a reduction or delay in neuronal death. We're hopeful that this will result in a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying neuronal dysfunction in AD.

As a neurosurgeon, I feel deeply dissatisfied with the treatment available to treat our patients. We certainly need to increase our therapeutic arsenal. I believe that this dissatisfaction is the driving force behind my work (I believe that many colleagues share this feeling) I currently have 3 lines of work and research 1. neurooncology: we look for therapeutic targets for childhood tumors that are more prevalent in pediatrics, such as medulloblastoma and ependymoma 2. cerebral palsy and movement disorders (especially in children). Children with cerebral palsy have many problems with locomotion and motility (especially spasticity and dystonia). The most commonly used treatments today (drugs and surgeries such as DBS (deep brain stimulation) still need to be greatly improved. My team is researching new interventions in the connectome of these children, such as new targets, microfocused ultrasound and different brain stimulation techniques. 3.Education: training new generations is a fundamental factor for the development of neuroscience, as well as ensuring a healthy environment where minds can offer their best. My passion is to help new neurosurgeons and healthcare students embrace neuroscience in a happy and responsible way

Neurological disorders involving dysfunction or deregulation of neural circuits such as Parkinson's disease, Epilepsy, and others are chronic and progressive diseases that severely impact quality of life. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has emerged as an effective and efficacious treatment paradigm for these "circuitopathies" as well as a powerful tool for exploring basic functionality of neural circuits. Despite DBS' clinical and scientific successes, it is fraught with off target stimulation and a lack of understanding of the underlying neural mechanisms of effective stimulation. My research centers around the development of new neural stimulation and recording tools to better understand and translate neuromodulation therapies. To this end, I have worked in the following areas: 1. Optical DBS to constrain stimulation only to local microcircuits implicated in disease. 2. Development of chronic small and large animal implantable pulse generators (IPGs) to better mimic clinical DBS practice in rodent and pig models. 3. Study of differential thalamocortical dynamics and thalamic contributions to traveling cortical waves 4. Development of awake behaving calcium imaging tools in DBS rat models to better understand thalamic entrainment of DBS stimuli. 5. AI-enabled closed-loop neuromodulation tools that learn subject neural dynamics in real time to provide target stimulation only when needed. My research is driven by a desire to serve those whose neurological conditions currently have no recourse to current medicine. I am equal parts engineer and neuroscientist and work to translate new neuromodulation tools which work with, and not against, the nervous system to provide safer and more efficacious medical tools.