Robert Marr
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, IL·Neuroscience
A blow to the head can do more than cause short-term harm: traumatic brain injury (TBI) is linked to a higher risk of dementia later in life. One clue is that a sticky protein fragment called amyloid-beta, the main ingredient of the plaques seen in Alzheimer's disease, builds up quickly in the brain after injury.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Biochemistry
- Topics
traumatic brain injury
Alzheimer's disease
dementia
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Test how pharmacologically altering the activity of neprilysin and NEP2, enzymes that degrade amyloid-beta, changes acute pathology and recovery in the days after traumatic brain injury in APP-humanized mice.
- Determine whether changing NEP-like enzyme activity around the time of brain injury alters the long-term development of Alzheimer's-like pathology in mice expressing human APP.
- Clarify how NEP and NEP2 control brain amyloid-beta levels after injury, linking amyloid clearance capacity to the causal path from head trauma to dementia.
More about the research
The brain normally clears amyloid-beta, and that clearance helps slow Alzheimer's. This project asks whether the same clearance systems shape recovery after brain injury and the later slide toward dementia.
Why it matters
People who suffer traumatic brain injuries from falls, accidents or sports face elevated dementia risk. Showing whether amyloid-clearing enzymes protect the brain after injury could help explain that risk and may identify these enzymes as drug targets for limiting early damage and reducing later Alzheimer's-like pathology in brain injury patients.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Tracy A. Butler
Weill Medical College of Cornell University, NY·Neuroscience
Confirm, using additional complementary measurement methods, the preliminary finding that traumatic brain injury reduces brain cerebrospinal and interstitial fluid clearance, including the glymphatic pathway, in patients imaged within 14 days of injury.
Robert Turner
Duke University, NC·Neuroscience
Test whether repetitive head impacts and traumatic brain injury from American football are linked to worse later-life memory, thinking and psychiatric symptoms in Black male former players compared with unexposed Black men.
Kristin Hamre
University of Tennessee Health Science Center, TN·Neuroscience
Test whether ethanol exposure in the first 10 postnatal days, when the mouse hippocampus is most sensitive, leads to earlier Alzheimer's-like behavior in 5xFAD mice, using tasks such as the Morris water maze.
The school
Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science: 4 labs on PI Pages, $12M a year on research, 15 research doctorates a year.
More about Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science
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