Nian Wang
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Biomedical Engineering
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease in which inflammation strips myelin, the insulating coat around nerve fibers, and eventually damages the nerves themselves. It affects more than 2 million people worldwide.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
multiple sclerosis
demyelination
axon damage
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Measure whole-brain myelin loss, iron imbalance and axon damage over time in cuprizone-treated Thy-1 YFP-16 mice, using quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) and diffusion MRI models (DTI, NODDI, DKI).
- Validate 3D MRI maps against whole-brain light sheet microscopy at each time point by matching individual voxels, revealing the tissue origins of MRI contrast.
- Generate and share high-resolution, multidimensional mouse brain atlases at each disease time point, at 25 to 200 micrometer resolution, in the Waxholm and Allen Mouse Brain Atlas spaces.
More about the research
Standard brain MRI can reveal abnormal tissue, but it cannot tell which kind of damage is present. It also has trouble detecting lesions in the cerebral cortex, the brain's outer layer. Better imaging markers could allow earlier diagnosis and closer tracking of how the disease progresses.
Why it matters
More specific MRI markers of myelin loss, iron imbalance and axon damage could help doctors diagnose multiple sclerosis earlier, including lesions in the cerebral cortex that clinical MRI misses. They could also help track disease progression more reliably, benefiting people with MS. The shared mouse brain atlases could aid other researchers studying the disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Christopher Hemond
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Detect paramagnetic rim lesions on clinical 3T MRI using a susceptibility-sensitive T2-star phase sequence in a retrospective cohort of MS patients followed over time.
Els Fieremans
New York University, NY·Biomedical Engineering
Generate a three-dimensional ultrastructural map of white matter injury in the mouse cuprizone demyelination model using large-scale electron microscopy and quantitative immunofluorescence, counting myelinated and unmyelinated axons, axonal beading and glial remodeling.
Brian Gold
University of Kentucky, KY·Neuroscience
Test whether low blood-brain barrier water exchange, measured with the new DW-ASL MRI sequence, predicts growth of white matter hyperintensities over about 3 years in healthy older adults.
The school
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: 40 labs on PI Pages, $869M a year on research, 86 research doctorates a year.
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