Professor Andrew Dunn has been awarded a prestigious Dana Foundation grant for Neuroimaging.
Andrew Dunn
Professor Andrew Dunn has been awarded a prestigious Dana Foundation grant for Neuroimaging.
This 3 year, $200,000 award will support Dr. Dunn’s research into the development of new laser-based methods for studying the changes in oxygen delivery to the brain following stroke.
The project seeks to quantify the ability of a potential stroke therapy to minimize tissue damage following ischemic stroke. Ischemic strokes are produced when normal blood flow to the brain is blocked, cutting off delivery of oxygen to brain tissue and setting off a cascade of harmful events around the stroke area. One potential way in which the damage can be slowed is to breathe high levels of oxygen. Dr Dunn’s lab will use a new technology, called multiphoton phosphorescence lifetime quenching microscopy, to quantify oxygen levels in the brain with three-dimensional resolution. The microscope that they have built enables them to select single blood vessels in the brain and dynamically measure oxygen delivery to tissues. By combining this technique with an experimental stroke model, they will determine the degree of oxygenation improvement achieved with oxygen therapy and determine whether increased oxygen levels lead to lower levels of damaged brain tissue.
The Dana Foundation is a private philanthropy with principal interests in brain science, immunology, and arts education. Charles A. Dana, a New York State legislator, industrialist and philanthropist, was president of the Dana Foundation from 1950 to 1966 and actively shaped its programs and principles until his death in 1975. The Dana Foundation’s science and health grants support brain research in neuroscience and immunology and their interrelationship in human health and disease.
