Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Dr. Timothy Hla has been awarded the Leducq Transatlantic Network award for the project entitled: Sphingosine 1-Phosphate in Neurovascular Biology and Disease.
This grant is awarded by the Fondation LeDucq, a Paris, France based organization, which is dedicated to improving human health in the areas of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. The members of the research consortium, named SphingoNet, are from six laboratories located in four countries. From Weill Cornell, Dr. Timothy Hla who is the North American coordinator, will lead the program. He will collaborate with Dr. Costantino Iadecola, the Director of the Brain and Mind Institute at Weill Cornell. From Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, Drs. May Han and Larry Steinman will participate. Another North American lab is headed by Dr. Richard Proia who is at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. The European coordinator is Dr. Christer Betsholtz at the Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden. Dr. Eric Camerer from the INSERM institute of Cardiovascular Research in Paris, Franch and Drs. Josef and Waltraud Pfeilschifter of Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany will participate as European members. These research groups will collaborate closely to investigate how the lipid mediator sphingosine 1-phosphate acts on its receptors in vascular, immune and neural cells to impact on normal brain function. They will also examine how this mechanism contributes to diseases such as stroke, vascular dementias and multiple sclerosis using mouse models. The researchers hope to gain new knowledge and develop new strategies to combat these diseases.
The endorsement by the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Fondation Leducq is a statement of committee’s belief the network will make an impact in the area of neurovascular research through innovation in science, collaboration at the international level, and the active involvement of young researchers in the research program. More than 120 applications were submitted and four networks were selected for funding.