Giffard Lab– In the Department of Anesthesia

Surviving Cerebral Ischemia

Stroke, reactivation and some neurodegenerative diseases have many mechanisms in common. Our research focus is cerebral ischemia-understanding how brain cells are injured and developing ways to reduce or prevent this injury. Most of our work is performed in primary cell culture, animal stroke models with a focus on glial cell injury as well as neuronal injury and model of brain injury that recepitulate the injury seen in survivors of cardiac arrest.

Specific Topics
  • bullet Gene therapy for stroke with heat shock proteins especially members of the Hsp70 family, antiapoptotic proteins (bcl-2 and bcl-x) and antioxidant proteins
  • bullet Role of astrocyte impairment in global ischemia
  • bullet Role of mitochondria in stress, inflammation and cell death signaling
  • bullet Cell type specific injury studying isolated neurons, astrocytes, microglia and endothelial cells
  • bullet Cell-cell interactions of theses cell types during injury using different types of mixed cultures, brain slices, and transgenic animals.
  • bullet Role of inflammation in brain injury
  • bullet Effects of development on vulnerability to injury and type of cell death

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