From the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine…
April 2025 Research Highlights reported by the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine.
Ash Tadjalli, PhD.
Bidirectional communication between neurons and microglia is a critical aspect of maintaining central nervous system (CNS) homeostasis, influencing both normal physiology and pathophysiology of CNS disorders. This research work examines how the cross-communication between neurons and microglia regulates synaptic plasticity in the healthy spinal cord. Findings from this study demonstrate that phrenic motor neurons and microglia in the ventral horn of the cervical spinal cord reciprocally talk to one another, and this cross communication regulates plasticity in the phrenic motor system that drives diaphragm muscle contractions.
Respiratory plasticity is of considerable importance when confronted with intrinsic and extrinsic physiological changes or with the onset of neurological disorders that compromise breathing. Demonstration that spinal microglia regulate respiratory motor plasticity has important implications for ongoing translational efforts to harness motor plasticity as a therapeutic modality to restore breathing and non-respiratory motor functions in clinical disorders that compromise breathing and other movements, such as spinal cord injury, ALS and multiple sclerosis.
Lauren Fine, MD.
Dr. Lauren Fine, Dr. Vanessa Johnson, Dr. Vijay Rajput and Dr. Stefanie Carter received a grant from the AMA in 2023 to implement Blood Pressure Measurement Educational modules into the medical school curriculum. Drs. Fine and Johnson, along with the Practice of Medicine Course Directors, have successfully implemented these and assessed their efficacy in improving the confidence and skills of medical students in accurately measuring a blood pressure. Drs. Fine and Johnson were also invited to the AMA Summit in June 2024 where the various schools who have participated in this grant across both the 2021 and 2023 grant cycles were able to collaborate and share ideas on the modules and medical education in general. Dr. Fine was featured in a video recorded while at this summit, in which she shares the experience of NSU MD in implementing them into the clinical skills curriculum.
Vladimir Beljanski, PhD.
The availability of the bio-bank and data-bank from the longitudinal good day/bad day study of ME/CFS at the Nova Southeastern University and the collaboration with Nancy Klimas and her genomics group presents an opportunity to perform ex-vivo testing of a cell-based therapy on the some key drivers of the disease. The proposed project offers the opportunity to conduct a study of effects that mesenchymal stromal cell-derived exosomes may have on ME/CFS using viable, cryopreserved peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Both mesenchymal stromal cells and their exosomes have been shown to possess immunomodulatory and regenerative properties and we propose to utilize both cells and exosomes as probes to examine their effect(s) on aberrant inflammatory and metabolic responses observed in ME/CFS.