Andreasson Lab News
Arc Institute Ignite Award
Congratulations, Katrin Andreasson, MD on receiving a 2023 Arc Institute Ignite Award. Award recipients were selected for their visionary research agendas that venture into little-explored territory. Their expertise complements work happening at Arc and explores focus areas from distinct angles, opening up additional channels for discovery and impact. Dr. Andreasson's grant will investigate the role of dysregulated inflammatory responses that drive age-associated cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases. A primary focus will be on the peripheral innate immune response and how it changes in aging and age-associated inflammatory diseases.
Simons Foundation Grant
Congratulations, Chinyere Agbaegbu Iweka, PhD, on receiving a Simons Foundation Independence Award for her work "Circadian regulation of immune cell metabolism and the effect on cognitive flexibility in the aging brain"
Bold ideas to advance healthy brain aging win inaugural Knight Initiative grants
The Phil and Penny Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience is proud to announce the recipients of its inaugural 2022 Innovation and Catalyst Grants.
Q&A: How the aging immune system impacts brain health
Katrin Andreasson discusses how immune cells can cause harmful brain inflammation and contribute to the development of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease.
Special meeting with Professor Condoleezza Rice
Stanford University Postdoctoral Association (SURPAS) sponsored a special Q & A meeting with Professor Condoleezza Rice & Chinyere Agbaegbu Iweka, PhD, SURPAS Co-chair.
Second cohort of CZ Biohub Investigators includes 33 Stanford faculty
Dr. Katrin Andreasson was selected from nearly 700 applicants as a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. The Investigator Program, open to faculty members at Stanford University, UC San Francisco, and UC Berkeley, awards $1 million in unrestricted funds over five years to each Investigator, with the goal of building engaged, collaborative communities of Bay Area scientists to undertake creative and innovative research that will help solve the biggest challenges in biomedicine.
Chinyere Iweka Recognized with Stanford Postdoc JEDI Champion Award
"Instead of our differences bringing us together, it tears us apart. We hide and live in fear instead of embracing and celebrating ourselves. Meetings to discuss race, equity, inclusion and justice, emails expressing shock and horror about the evil people do on account of race and religion, mean nothing if we follow through with no tangible action. If I can make one person feel respected, accepted and empowered and perhaps pass the feeling along, then I have achieved my goal. Even the smallest acts can make a significant difference."
Study reveals immune driver of brain aging
Scientists have identified a key factor in mental aging and shown that it might be prevented or reversed by fixing a glitch in the immune system’s front-line soldiers.
New Method for Tackling Stroke Restrains an Overactive Immune System
Shutting down an inflammatory molecule could potentially provide treatment days after onset.
Scientists shrink stroke damage in mice by calming immune cells outside brain
Instead of trying to fix stroke-damaged nerve cells, Stanford scientists took aim at a set of first-responder immune cells that live outside the brain but rush to the site of a stroke. It worked.
Boosting the Brain's Immune System - Dr. Katrin Andreasson
Previous research has shown that NSAIDS, a class of anti-inflammatory drug, can help prevent Alzheimer’s in cognitively normal people, but it wasn’t clear why. NSAIDs do not work once any memory loss has begun, so this is a real preventive effect. Now, exciting new research has identified a potential culprit - malfunctioning immune cells in the brain. This discovery has opened up new avenues for treatment.
Brain Traffic Control
With new brain-scanning methods, scientists aim to make Alzheimer’s disease history
Alzheimer’s Disease: What Stands Between Us and a Cure?
Our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease is better than ever before. So why are we still so far from a cure?
Blocking receptor in brain's immune cells counters Alzheimer's in mice, study finds
Brain cells called microglia chew up toxic substances and cell debris, calm inflammation and make nerve-cell-nurturing substances. New research shows that keeping them on the job may prevent neurodegeneration.
Another big step toward building a better aspirin tablet
In the new study, which appears in the Journal of Neuroscience, Andreasson and her colleagues (including fellow Stanford neuroscientist Marion Buckwalter, MD, PhD,) specifically blocked PGE2's function in mice's microglia.
Untangling the inflammation/Alzheimer's connection
It's been known for some time that otherwise relatively healthy people who, for one reason or another, are long-time users of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, such as aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil), naproxen (Aleve), and others have a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Stanford neuroscientist Katrin Andreasson, MD, just published a study in Annals of Neurology that suggests why this might be so.