“All sorts of things can happen when you’re open to new ideas and playing around with things.” 

- Stephanie Kwolek, Chemist & Perkins Medal Recipient

Overall Focus

The focus of this laboratory is on the cross-disciplinary intersection of the blood-brain barrier, neuropathology of HIV infection, substance use/abuse, and mechanical injury (Traumatic Brain injury). As part of these endeavors, we are interested and working towards the creation of new models in order to advance the fields understanding of the cellular and system dynamics of these pathologies and biological systems. Overall, it is our hope that the studies pursued within our laboratory lead to the discovery of novel treatment modalities for substance use disorder, traumatic brain injury, and HIV that have a lasting impact on the clinical population. In order to accomplish this goal, our laboratory utilizes both basic and translational research techniques. Our team has expertise in endothelial-vascular biology, neuroscience, immunology, molecular biology, and microfluidics, allowing for the use of cutting-edge in-vitro and ex-vivo methodologies, as well as, animal models of disease progression. Additionally, we utilize primary human cells and relevant clinical samples (i.e., tissue, serum, CSF) to validate and extend our basic research findings with a translational approach. Our lab regularly tackles challenging questions and creates innovation solutions that lead to significant novel discoveries.  

Previous Projects