Seven University of Florida neuroscientists have earned Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Research Trust Bridge Funds, which support developing research programs that demonstrated financial need in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The awards will ensure continuity of lab personnel and core research teams and enable continued research that will lead to extramural grant applications for investigators focused on spinal cord injury or traumatic and/or anoxic brain injury. The funds were provided by the UF Breathing Research and Therapeutics, or BREATHE, Center and the Trauma, Concussion, and Sports, or TRACS, Neuromedicine Program.
The following investigators, from seven departments across the UF Campus, were awarded Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Research Trust Bridge Funds:
- George Ansoanuur, M.D. — “Advancing Neuro-vestibular Rehabilitation into Telehealth During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
- Vijayendran Chandran, Ph.D. — “Reactivating the Neural Growth Program to Repair the Injured CNS.”
- Erica Dale, Ph.D. — “The Potential of Closed-Loop Epidural Stimulation to Elicit Respiratory Plasticity and Functional Recovery of Breathing Ability After cSCI.”
- Elisa Gonzalez-Rothi, Ph.D., DPT — “Effects of Chronic IH on Plasticity-Related Outcomes in Chronic Cervical Cord Spinal Injury.”
- Christine Schmidt, Ph.D. — “3D-Printed Multicomponent and Spatial Temporal Model of Spinal Cord Injury.”
- Shahabeddin Vahdat, Ph.D. — “Spinal Cord Circuit Function and Its Functional Interaction with the Brain After Stroke.”
- Zhihui Yang, Ph.D. — “Examination of the Neuroprotective Effects of Novel Anti-GBDP Antibody Treatment in an In Vitro TBI Model.”
This story was originally posted by UF McKnight Brain Institute.
Check out more stories about UF research on COVID-19.