Taking Flight Award
Esther Krook-Magnuson, PhD / University of California, Irvine
This project uses a mouse model of temporal lobe epilepsy to investigate whether a responsive optogenetic intervention applied only when a seizure occurs and selectively targeting only a subset of excitatory cells in the temporal lobe can control spontaneous temporal lobe seizures.
Taking Flight Award
Ethan Goldberg, MD, PhD / The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
They will assess the functional integration of transplanted interneurons into normal and epileptic hippocampus as well as the ability of such cells to correct circuit-level dysfunction seen in epileptic brain circuits.
Innovator Award, Funded by the Vivian L. Cotton Award
Akiko Nishiyama, MD, PhD / University of Connecticut
The goal of this project is to test the potential of local NG2 glial cells as a source of functionally active interneurons in the seizure environment using a mouse model of temporal lobe epilepsy.
CURE Sleep and Epilepsy Award
Franck Kalume, PhD / Seattle Children's Hospital
In planned studies, Dr. Kalume and his team will use well-established genetic mouse models of human refractory epilepsies, namely the Dravet syndrome and focal cortical dysplasia.
Sleep & Epilepsy Award
Judy Liu, MD, PhD / Brown University
To learn more about the ways in which changes in sleep affect seizures and epilepsy, Dr. Liu and her team will use a mouse model that has sleep-associated seizures to determine which stages of sleep are vulnerable to seizures.
Taking Flight Award
Sharon Swanger, PhD / Emory University
To explore the role of NMDA receptors in epilepsy and to work towards a potential therapeutic target, Dr. Swanger and her team will test how selectively modulating the subset of NMDA receptors containing the GluN2C subunit affects excitation and inhibition in the thalamus, a brain region implicated in seizure generation and propagation.
Innovator Award
Jack Parent, MD / University of Michigan
Dr. Parent and his team will use human neural stem cells engineered to have random mutations in order to screen for and identify novel gene mutations that cause focal cortical dysplasia-like abnormalities in human brain cells.
CURE Epilepsy Award
Melanie Tallent, PhD / LifeSplice Pharma
To reduce the activity of the SCN8A protein, Dr. Tallent and her team have developed a drug (LSP-SCN8) that directs a process called “alternative splicing” of the SCN8A gene.
Taking Flight
William Nobis, MD, PhD / Northwestern University
This project aims to identify a specific neuronal subtype in a deep brain nucleus which may be critical in cardiorespiratory control, providing a better understanding of the mechanism of SUDEP.
