Taking Flight Award
Rachel June Smith, PhD / University of Alabama at Birmingham
Dr. Rachel June Smith will build computational models to virtually stimulate the brain and identify regions of hyperexcitability.
Taking Flight Award
Cathryn Cadwell MD, PhD / University of California, San Francisco
Dr. Cadwell will study single cells from surgically resected tissue from patients to better understand the molecular, anatomical, and electrophysiological changes that cause seizures in FCD.
CURE Epilepsy Award
Gemma Carvill, PhD / Northwestern University
Dr. Carvill’s team will determine if residual biological material on depth electrodes used during evaluation of patients for potential surgery can be used to study epilepsy.
Taking Flight Award
Chris Greene, PhD / Trinity College Dublin
For this project, Dr. Greene will explore genetic changes leading to breakdown of blood-brain barrier integrity in a mouse model of drug-resistant epilepsy with the goal of identifying changes that are associated with the development of drug resistance.
Rare Epilepsy Partnership Award
Ype Elgersma / Erasmus University Medical Center (Erasmus MC)
Dr. Elgersma’s team proposes to develop a new mouse model to study the interaction and dose effect of these genes.
Rare Epilepsy Partnership Award
Jillian McKee, MD, PhD / The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Dr. McKee’s project aims to understand the natural history and genetics of SCN8A-related disorders. Her team will use data from electronic medical records (EMR) to understand the full range of clinical features over time.
Rare Epilepsy Partnership Award
Hans von Bokhoven, PhD / Stichting Radboud Universitair Medisch Centrum (Radboudumc)
Dr. von Bokhoven and his team propose to restore normal KANSL1 levels by increasing the activity of the other (normal) copy of the gene that is still present in cells of people with KdVS syndrome.
Catalyst Award
Sangmi Chung, PhD / New York Medical College
For their CURE Epilepsy Catalyst project, the team will conduct key studies needed to advance this promising therapy toward clinical applications.
Catalyst Award
Shilpa Kadam, PhD / Axonis Therapeutics, Inc.
This study will generate key data showing that AXONIS’ brain-penetrating, KCC2-potentiating drug can treat refractory neonatal seizures and prevent epileptogenesis in a neonatal phenobarbital-resistant mouse model of HIE.
