Challenge Award, Funded by the CJM Foundation
Braxton Norwood, PhD / Phillips Universitaet Marburg, Germany
We recently discovered that mice with particular TLR dysregulation exhibit spontaneous seizures in adulthood, despite having normal brain structure. We hypothesize that this immune system dysfunction causes epilepsy.
Challenge Award, Funded by the Madison Friends of CURE Award
Anne Schaefer, MD, PhD / Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai
Our aim is to use miR-128 or its antagonists to suppress pathological neuron excitation causing fatal epilepsy in mice, and to extend our findings to further advance human epilepsy treatment.
Taking Flight Award
Catherine Christian, PhD / University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The proposed studies will focus on using newly developed methods to selectively stimulate astrocytes in the nRT using light, and assess the effects of this stimulation on both synaptic inhibition and absence seizures.
Challenge Award
David Henshall, PhD / Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
This project will test models of autoantibody transfer to determine if these LGI1 antibodies are sufficient to cause seizures and interfere with brain functions such as memory.
Challenge Award
Annamaria Vezzani, PhD / Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri (IFRMN) - Milan, Italy
The project goals are to use experimental models to prove the HMGB1 involvement in epilepsy development and its comorbidities, the utility of blood HMGB1 for predicting disease development and the therapeutic response to treatment, and the anti-epileptogenic effects of a new combination of medically used drugs targeting HMGB1.
Pediatric Epilepsies Awards
Jeong Ho Lee, MD, PhD / Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
The identification of brain-only genetic mutations will not only reveal the cause of the epilepsy, but will also provide information on biomarkers and medically actionable targets, which are important as we seek to treat these childhood drug-resistant epilepsies.
Taking Flight Award
Gemma Carvill, PhD / University of Washington
Here, we will use a new genome-editing technology to introduce mutations into two of these genes and create neuronal models of epilepsy.
Taking Flight Award
Gaia Novarino, PhD / Institute of Science and Technology, Austria
We aim to employ human “mini brains” to compare the effect of a large number of genetic mutations and identify points of intersection between distinct forms of EIEEs.
Innovator Award, Funded by the Team S4 Award
Angelique Bordey, PhD / Yale University
If exosomes released from “epileptic” neurons do alter the function of healthy neurons, this would open up an entirely new field of epilepsy research.
