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Headlines 11 Dr Thomas Park, University of Auckland $277,768 Improving outcomes for brain tumour patients Radiation therapy can help brain tumour patients live longer, but it may also harm the surrounding healthy brain tissue, affecting a patient’s quality of life. Dr Thomas Park and his teamhave developed a novel method of keeping human brain specimens, obtained fromneurosurgery, alive. Using this precious resource, they hope to better understand how radiation damages the brain at a molecular and cellular level, with the aimof alleviating this potentially preventable condition. Dr Thomas Park is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Pharmacology and the Neurosurgery Research Unit at the Centre for Brain Research. His project is titled Elucidating the cellular changes responsible for radiation-induced neurological deficits. More about Dr Park’s promising research to help brain tumour patients is on page 15. DrWilliamDiprose, TeWhatuOra Te Toka Tumai Auckland $103,248 Keeping a cool head for stroke patients Strokes are increasingly treated by a specialised clot- removal procedure that restores blood flow to the brain. However, patients often need to be transported long distances in an ambulance or helicopter to have the procedure, and suffer brain damage because of the delay. Like keeping food cold in the refrigerator, cooling the brain might slow brain damage before blood flow is restored. In this project, a cooling cap will be used to reduce brain temperature in people undergoing clot removal for stroke. Dr Diprose is an early-career clinician scientist and will lead the project alongside Professor Alan Barber, the Neurological Foundation Chair of Clinical Neurology. His research is titled Head COOLing in acute iscHEmic stroke patients: A feasibility and safety stuDy (COOLHEAD). More about his study is on page 13. Small Project Grant Dr Hamid Abbasi University of Auckland $15,000 Using AI to identify cerebral palsy in infants The early movement patterns of babies are a powerful indicator of whether they are developing normally or might be at-risk for developing neurological conditions that will affect later life. A mobile app will be developed to detect abnormal movement patterns using just cellphone video. It will help identify children who need support earlier than they currently receive it, in time to intervene during critical developmental periods. Early support and intervention, in some cases, will reduce the severity of the life-long condition meaning better quality of life. Dr Abbasi is a Research Fellow at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute. His project is titled AUGMENT – technology for infants’ general movements assessment. Read more about his project on page 14. Philip Wrightson Fellowship & Small Project Grant Dr Molly Swanson University of Auckland Philip Wrightson Fellowship $245,052 Small Project Grant $15,000 The Good, the Bad, and the Reactive & From Bench to Brain Dr Molly Swanson is emerging as a gifted neuroscientist, gaining praise for her work on microglia, the brain immune cells that become ‘toxic’ in the later stages of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). She received two grants in round 2023A. Dr Swanson will travel to the University of Wollongong under the Philip Wrightson Fellowship, where she will investigate microglial changes in brain tissue from ALS patients with disease-causing mutations. Her project grant will be used to establish a protocol to generate microglia from human stem cells. The long-term goal is to develop 'disease in a dish' models of human neurodegenerative diseases. Dr Swanson is based in the School of Biological Sciences and Centre for Brain Research and is mentored by Dr Emma Scotter, head of the Motor Neuron Disease Lab, who also receives research funding from the Neurological Foundation. Her studies are titled The Good, the Bad, and the Reactive: Defining Genotype-Specific Microglial Phenotypes in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and From Bench to Brain: Validating an iPSC Microglia Model for Neurological Disease Research. Senior Research Fellowship Dr Helen Murray University of Auckland $248,413 Untangling Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Dr Helen Murray is New Zealand’s leading expert on CTE. This project, mentored by Professor Maurice Curtis from the Neurological Foundation Human Brain Bank, could significantly advance our understanding of CTE. Dr Murray will study post- mortem brain tissue from individuals with CTE, Alzheimer's disease, or no disease pathology to investigate a hypothesis that a specific change in the shape of the tau protein, called p-tau231, may be an early marker of disease. This could make diagnosing CTE in patients possible, as at present, the disease can only be diagnosed in post-mortem brain tissue. The importance of understanding CTE, and how Dr Murray is central to this, is featured on pages 4-8. The study is titled Untangling the earliest forms of tau pathology in Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and Alzheimer’s disease.