RESEARCH PORTFOLIO
Delivery of Neurotoxicant Antidotes Across the
of the Brain Science Institute at the Johns Hopkins
Blood-Brain Barrier
School of Medicine. The Working Group meets several
Building on some of the innovations that evolved from
times a year to hear presentations from Hopkins and
INBT’s Blood-Brain Working Group, the Institute landed
invited faculty, industry leaders and, in some cases, Hop-
a grant from the Defense Threat Destruction Agency to
kins postdocs and graduate students doing compelling
provide new insight into the transport of neurotoxicant
work. Speakers over the last 18 months included Harold
antidotes (known as oximes) across the blood-brain barrier.
Selnick of Merck; Eric Shusta, professor of chemical and
The grant, initially for $1.3 million for two years with the
biological engineering at the University of Wisconsin,
opportunity to extend it three more years, involves profes-
Madison; Dennis Grab, associate professor of pathology
sor and INBT director Peter Searson and assistant profes-
and Il Minn, instructor of Radiology, both from the Johns
sor Martin Ulmschneider, both from the Department of
Hopkins School of Medicine; and Greg Wiedman and
Materials Science and Engineering at the Whiting School
Andrew Wong, both recent PhD recipients from the JHU
of Engineering in collaboration with professor Dwight
Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
Bergles from the Department of Neuroscience of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The project has three
Center for Digital Pathology
components: one will use a previously developed artificial
Denis Wirtz, Vice Provost for Research, the Smoot Professor
blood vessel to measure how oximes perfuse through a
of Engineering and Associate Director of INBT, was the
manufactured system; one will conduct imaging studies
keynote speaker at The Celebration of Data Symposium
using transgenic mouse models whose blood-brain barrier
on June 20, 2014 on the Homewood campus. Speakers
epithelium expresses fluorescent proteins; and a third that
discussed how they are leveraging data in a variety of
will use computational models to predict outcomes.
research arenas, including academic science, the biotech industry and the private and government sectors. Other
Blood-Brain Barrier Working Group
INBT affiliated speakers included Konstantinos Konstan-
Formed in 2012, the Johns Hopkins Blood-Brain Barrier
topoulos, PhD Professor and Chair, Chemical & Biomo-
Working Group brings together researchers with diverse
lecular Engineering and several alumni of the Wirtz lab
interests and expertise to address key problems associated
including Soichiro Yamada, PhD Associate Professor, UC
with drug delivery, the role of the blood-brain barrier (BBB)
Davis; Daniele Gilkes, PhD, Assistant Research Professor
in disease, and the structure and function of the BBB.
at JHU; and Shyam Khatau, PhD, Senior Consultant,
Chairs of the working group include INBT Director Peter
Navigant and others.
C. Searson and Jeffrey D. Rothstein, MD, PhD, director
4
Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology