Pittsburgh, March 17, 2022 -- Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery have been awarded $186,000 in research grants from the Pittsburgh Foundation's Walter L. Copeland Fund. The awards are part of $1.3 million in grant money recently awarded University of Pittsburgh health science researchers by the foundation.
Since 1945, The Pittsburgh Foundation has worked to improve the quality of life in the Pittsburgh region by evaluating and addressing community issues, promoting responsible philanthropy and connecting donors to the critical needs of the community. It oversees a portfolio of funds—such as the Walter L. Copeland Fund—earmarked specifically to advance medical research.
The Walter L. Copeland Fund has supported preclinical research projects in brain tumors, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, stroke, neuroinflammation and neurodegenerative diseases at the department for more than 60 years. The fund was made possible by a generous $1 million gift in 1959 from the estate of Pittsburgh businessman Walter L. Copeland. In the decades since it’s inception in 1961, the Copeland Fund has provided the impetus for hundreds of research projects that, ultimately, have improved the lives of countless patients.
This year's funded research projects are:
Spatial regulation of proprioceptive and somatosensory information during electrical stimulation of the nervous system.
Marco Capogrosso, PhD
Studying Microglial-Brain Tumor Interactions
Sameer Agnihotri, PhD
The Role of Pulsatility in the Management of Hydrocephalus: A Pilot Study
Stephanie Greene, MD
Developing a Cognitive and Histopathological Classification for Invasive Monitoring in Medically Refractory Epilepsy
Arka Mallela, MD, Jorge González-Martínez, MD, PhD
Melatonin regulates mitochondrial impairments and bioenergetics reprogramming in neurons
Abhishek Jauharo, PhD
Subchronic synaptic vesicular pool alterations after traumatic brain injury
Shaurn Carlson, PhD
A Novel Mechanism of Glioma Progression Mediated by Macrophage-derived Oncostatin-M
Gary Kohanbash, PhD
A blood test to detect cerebral aneurysm formation - Part I
Kamil Nowicki, MD, PhD; Robert Friedlander, MD
Thalamo-cortical interactions in epilepsy
Witold Lipski, PhD
Purkinje Cell GABA Signaling Plasticity Underlies Cortical Stroke Motor Recovery
Daryl Fields II, MD, PhD; Jorge González-Martínez, MD, PhD
Investigating Mitochondrial abnormalities in Huntington Disease using Human Neurons In Vitro
Tanisha Singh, PhD
Evaluating novel regulatory mechanisms of cancer-cell-MHC expression to improve pediatric brain cancer immunotherapy
Itay Rapheal, PhD
CNS Microglia synthesize melatonin: An M1 to M2 transition
Pampa Saha, PhD
Effect of upregulation of Ng by AAV on TBI synaptic deficits
Sarah Svirsky, CNUP; C. Edward Dixon, MD
Melatonin deficiency increases pro-inflammatory microglial cell population after ischemic/reperfusion-induced injury
Yalikun Suofu, PhD; Robert Friedlander, MD
Blocking mutant huntingtin as a potential therapeutic treatment for Huntington disease
Svitlana Yablonska, PhD
Language-Memory Crossroad: The Fingerprint of Word Retrieval in the Human Hippocampus
Joey Hsu, Jorge González-Martínez, MD, PhD