Washington University in St. Louis (WU)
My primary area of research interest is acute ischemic stroke with large vessel occlusion, more specifically, the cellular and molecular components of stroke-mediated inflammation and the associated mechanisms of injury and repair. My overarching career goal is to is to develop an independently funded, but collaborative research program to investigate stroke-mediated inflammation, using a reverse-translational approach approach and multi-omics data integration. I believe this line of inquiry has the potential to identify novel molecular targets which could inform the search for new stroke therapies and fulfill a critical need in acute stroke management. My KL2 proposal, Transcriptomic Inflammatory Biomarkers in Large Artery Stroke (TRAILBLAZE), aims to identify transcriptomic biomarkers of inflammation associated with stroke severity and early stroke recovery. This proposal builds upon two institutional pilot awards utilizing transcriptomics and neuronal specific exosome isolation to identify mRNA and microRNA biomarkers in a similar patient population.