UF Principal Investigator Dr. Kevin Wang, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Psychiatry and Neuroscience and Chemistry and Director of the Program for Neurotrauma, Neuroproteomics & Biomarker Research and his team of Co-investigators (Dr. Zhihui (Sunny) Yang of Dept. of Emergency Medicine, Dr. Marcelo Febo of Dept. of Psychiatry (as Project Lead on neuroimaging), Dr. Jiepei Zhu of Dept. of Anesthesiology , Dr. Prodip Bose of Dept. of Pharmacology & Therapeutics) were awarded a 5- year UG3/UH3 award titled: NIBA-TBI: Neuro-Imaging and biofluid-based Biomarker Assessments as translational pathophysiological outcome measures in TBI.
In this project, in a multiple animal model setting, Dr. Wang’s team will examine if quantitative biofluid- and MRI-based biomarker assessments are useful translational assessment measures that can help address a range of TBI pathomechanistic subphenotypes including axonal injury, contusion/tissue necrosis, loss of synaptic continuity, white matter injury, microvascular injury and neuroinflammation.
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Wang’s NIBA-TBI project was one of four projects selected by NINDS for funding. Under this UG3/UH3 funding mechanism, in collaboration with NINDS program staff, Dr. Wang and PI of the other three funded projects will also form a TOP-NT Consortium that will focus on optimizing and testing the newly proposed preclinical assessment batteries, conducting cross-site validation, and dissimilating Consortium findings in partnership with NINDS. The ultimate overarching goal of TOP-NT consortium will be translating these leanings into clinically compatible assessment measures in future therapeutic trials for TBI.