Challenge Awards, Funded by the Falk Medical Research Trust
Steven Roper, MD / University of Florida
This project offers a new direction for treatment of intractable epilepsies using targeted cellular therapies. If this research is successful, the use of adult human donor cells will facilitate the translation of this approach to treatments for individuals with epilepsy due to CD.
Challenge Awards, Funded by the Brighter Future Award
Gary Yellen, PhD / Harvard Medical School
The success of dietary treatment (such as the ketogenic diet) for many of these individuals suggests a powerful connection between metabolism and seizures. However, these diets are difficult to maintain, spurring a search for alternative ways to manipulate metabolism in order to prevent seizures.
Prevention of Epilepsy After Brain Injury Award, Funded by the Friends for a Cure Award
Istvan Mody, PhD / UCLA School of Medicine
Dr. Mody has developed a novel and specific cerebrovascular trauma model in mice that reduces the blood supply to brain areas heavily involved in the genesis of epilepsy, and has preliminary data consistent with the development of epilepsy after such trauma.
Multidisciplinary Award, Funded by the Heldman Award
Amy Brooks-Kayal, MD / University of Colorado Denver
Using a combination of studies in the laboratory and in animal models of epilepsy, they will use specific blockers of BDNF and the JAK/STAT pathway to reduce or prevent epilepsy development and/or progression.
Taking Flight Award
Hongtao Ma, PhD / Weill Cornell Medical College
The CURE-funded research will focus on the relationship between the electrical aspect of seizure onset and spread of the seizures to other brain areas, as well as the changes in blood flow in the brain associated with seizures; both in the seizure focus and the surrounding normal brain.
Multidisciplinary Award, Funded by Lazard Capital Markets
Manisha Patel, PhD / University of Colorado
The goal of Drs. Patel and Roberts’s study is to determine the role of gamma-ketoaldehydes in cognitive impairment associated with chronic epilepsy.
Innovator Award
Quoc-Thang Nguyen, PhD / NeurAccel Biosciences
Dr. Nguyen and his collaborator Dr. Fouquet will use biophotonics technology to measure levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the brains of experimental animals undergoing seizures to better understand the involvement of neurotransmitters in epilepsy and to establish specific neurotransmitters as biomarkers that could predict the onset of seizures.
Challenge Award, Funded by the Julie's Hope Award
Brian Litt, MD / University of Pennsylvania
With funding from CURE, they will further develop these devices and test them first in animal models and then in individuals with medically resistant epilepsy in pursuit of CURE’s mission to achieve “no seizures and no side effects.”
Taking Flight Award
Paulette McRae, PhD / Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
The goal of Dr. McRae’s project is to understand how changes in the environment surrounding cells in the hippocampus contribute to learning and memory problems in individuals with TLE.
