Department of Neurosurgery

UK's Department of Neurosurgery has been awarded $1,240,734 over five years by the NIH Blueprint Translational Neuroscience Training Grant entitled "Therapeutic Strategies for Neurodegeneration." This grant will fund five predoctoral students per year and two post docs (Ph.D and M.D.) beginning the second year. Applicants should be interested in a career in translational therapeutic discovery in the areas of spinal cord and brain injury, stoke or Parkinson's disease. Each of the Ph.D. trainees, in addition to pursuing therapeutically-oriented basic research training, will have Clinical Tutorials designed specifically for them that provides significant exposure to the clinical aspects of their neurological disorder of interest. These will include shadowing clinicians, participating in rounds and attendance at Grand Rounds and other activities. One of the post-doctoral positions is for a neurological or neurosurgical resident or fellow who desires to spend a year doing clinically relevant basic research in one or more of the basic science training faculty laboratories.

Yurek, David, Ph.D., has been awarded $1,805,250 by NIH (NINDS & NIA) 1R01 NS 050311 for the study, “Stem Cell Adaptability in Parkinson’s Disease.” He will serve as the principal investigator of this study from December 2004 until November 2009.

Yurek, David, Ph.D., has also been awarded $1,250,000 by the NIH (NINDS) 1R01 NS42402 for the study of “Intranigral Transplantation in Parkinsonian Monkeys.” He will serve as the co-investigator on this from March 2006 until January 2011.

Toborek, Michal, M.D, Ph.D., has been awarded $44,558 by the National Institute of Health/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for his project, “Use of natural antioxidants to overcome efflux systems of brain endothelial cells and improve HAART efficacy in the CNS.”