Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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Alex Kuan

Strategy to defend vs double hit at beginning of life

Chorioamnionitis is a complication of pregnancy: inflammation of the membranes surrounding the fetus, caused by a bacterial infection. It has the potential to inflict damage to the brain of the fetus, especially when combined with fetal hypoxia, and is a known risk factor for developing cerebral palsy.

Chia-Yi (Alex) Kuan and his team, who study fetal brain injury in the Department of Pediatrics, have a new paper in Journal of Neuroscience on a strategy for inhibiting fetal brain inflammation. Postdoctoral fellows Dianer Yang, Yu-Yo Sun and Siddhartha Kumar Bhaumik are co-first authors.

The researchers show that a type of immune cells called Th17 cells seems to be driving inflammation because the rest of the fetal immune system is still immature. A marker of Th17 cells is elevated in blood samples from human infants with chorioamnionitis, the researchers found. Th17 cells are thought to be important for both autoimmunity and anti-microbial responses.

A drug called fingolimod, which stops immune cells from circulating out of the lymph nodes, was effective in reducing inflammation-induced fetal brain injury in animal models. Fingolimod has been approved by the FDA for use with multiple sclerosis and has been studied in clinical trials of kidney transplantation. The authors write that it may be a potential add-on to hypothermia as a treatment for infants in danger of hypoxia + infection-induced brain damage.

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology, Neuro Leave a comment