Bolanle Famakin
Position title: Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology
Email: famakin@neurology.wisc.edu
Department:
Neurology
Education:
M.D. in Medicine, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA, USA
Residency in Preliminary Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Residency in Neurology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Fellowship in Cerebrovascular Diseases and Stroke, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA
Research Fellowship in Innate Immunity and Stroke, National Institutes of Health and National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Stroke Branch, Bethesda, MD, USA
Research Description:
My research interest includes understanding downstream molecular signaling as it relates to amplification of the inflammatory response during acute stroke and the molecular cues needed to signal tissue repair during chronic stroke. While I was a clinical fellow at the National Institutes of Health, I used rodent models of ischemia to characterize the role of innate immune pathways such as the Toll–Like Receptor signaling pathway, during acute focal cerebral ischemia, in directing the molecular cues that signal repair after stroke. The long–term goal of my research studies is to obtain foundational knowledge needed to develop novel therapeutic targets, or re–purpose old drugs, that can ameliorate damaging inflammation during the acute phase and potentiate repair during the chronic reparative phase of stroke. Since I started my own research program, at the University of Wisconsin, I have developed mouse models to study cell–specific innate immune activation and focused on astrocytes as a component of the neurovascular unit that can amplify injury and lead to worse outcomes from stroke. These studies have led to the identification of a neuroprotective astrocyte phenotype, the molecular basis of which we are currently unraveling using innovative molecular tools such as transcriptomics and proteomics.
Research Key Words:
Innate Immune Activation, Acute and Chronic Focal Cerebral Ischemia, Inflammatory Response during Strokes