Professor, Neurology

University of Washington (UW)

I am a clinician scientist with a focus on stroke at both the basic science and clinical levels. I have developed an independent NIH-funded research program focusing on the role of microglia and innate immune cell signaling pathways in the robustly protective ischemic preconditioning (IPC) phenomenon. My laboratory combines in vivo and in vitro methodologies to study IPC including multiple ischemia models for stroke and IPC, ex vivo flow cytometry/sorting, transcriptomic profiling of innate immune cells, single cell RNA seq, immunofluorescent microscopy, quantitative stereology and electrophysiology. Using these paradigms, we have demonstrated key roles for microglial type 1 interferon (IFN) signaling in IPC. We have also developed a novel model of IPC in white matter.  My training included medical scientist training program (MSTP) at UC Irvine as well as neurology residency and stroke fellowship at UW (completed in 2007).  My clinical work includes supervising in-patient attending for care of stroke and intracranial hemorrhage patients on the neurology/neurocritical care service at UW/Harborview Medical Center.  I am also the director of the UW Neurology Residency Research Track Program and co-PI for a newly resubmitted institutional R25 from UW Neurology/Neurosurgery.