A Medical Research Evening at Remuera Golf Club.
We welcomed Sryana Sukhdev and Dr Helen Murray to our meeting. Both speakers engaged impresed the audience with the work they are doing in their respective fields.
Sryana Sukhdev
Sryana is a PHD candidate whose area of study is focused on finding effective stroke treatments and improving the lives of stroke patients.
Her enqury was kicked off when her father suffered a stroke and seeing his experience left an indllible impact on her and became the catalyst for her studies.The current treatments for stroke patients aim to restore blood flow to the brain as quickly as possible. Preferably within 3-4 hours. In some cases that is not possible especially if the stroke patient is in a rural area.
Sryana’s research involves investigating whether nebulised sodium nitrite can serve as a novel treatment in extending the treatment window available to stroke patients.
Sryana proposes using nebulised sodium nitrite as a cost-effective way of delivering nitrous oxide to a patient, which has been shown to be safe and welltolerated by clinical populations and could be administered quickly after stroke onset by first responders. The hypothesis is this will selectively improve collateral blood flow to stroke-affected areas. Sryana’s preclinical work will help to determine the way it does this and refine optimal timing and dosage and lead to human studies of the cerebrovascular effects of sodium nitrite treatment in a 'stroke risk' cohort.
Sryana’s aim is to build evidence to support future clinical trials for this process.
Dr Helen MurrayHelen is a New Zealand Ice Hockey representative and a research fellow at the centre for Brian Research, Auckland University.
Helen spoke to us about the links between repetitive head injuries and neurodegeneration. While media focus is on head injuries experienced in contact sports including rugby, league, soccer and ice hockey head injuries are also caused by Blasting effects (in the military) domestic violence and prison violence.
Helen addressed two forms of brain disease that may look the same but are not. The first is Chronic Traumatic Encephlopathy (CTE) and dementia. Helen made the point that CTE is not Alzheimer's as they have different pathologies.
CTE is a health effect that can only be properly diagnosed after death although the symptoms may be apparent . Helen commented that neurologists can provide probable CTE diagnosis while people are alive by using a process of elimination, although at best this is an educated guess.
Dementia is generally seen in those aged sixty five plus whereas CTE has been seen in patients in their early thirties and forties.
The challenge that Helen has been addressing is to development treatments for CTE and alzhiemers She studies brain tissue contained in the New Zealand Human Brain bank. She has developed a method of tissue labelling which as the impressive name of multiplex immunohistochemistry which enables her to identify up to 100 proteins in a single piece of tissue. The point is to be able to identify different tissue pathologies at single cell level. The hope is that using this process that one day in the future biomarkers will be measured in a blood test to identify whether an individual has accumulated too much brain damage and provide guidance on whether the activity causing the brain damage should be stopped or modified to stop that damage occurring.
Helen's address was fascinating and provoked a series of very interesting questions at the end
Helen spoke to us about the links between repetitive head injuries and neurodegeneration. While media focus is on head injuries experienced in contact sports including rugby, league, soccer and ice hockey head injuries are also caused by Blasting effects (in the military) domestic violence and prison violence.
Helen addressed two forms of brain disease that may look the same but are not. The first is Chronic Traumatic Encephlopathy (CTE) and dementia. Helen made the point that CTE is not Alzheimer's as they have different pathologies.
CTE is a health effect that can only be properly diagnosed after death although the symptoms may be apparent . Helen commented that neurologists can provide probable CTE diagnosis while people are alive by using a process of elimination, although at best this is an educated guess.
Dementia is generally seen in those aged sixty five plus whereas CTE has been seen in patients in their early thirties and forties.
The challenge that Helen has been addressing is to development treatments for CTE and alzhiemers She studies brain tissue contained in the New Zealand Human Brain bank. She has developed a method of tissue labelling which as the impressive name of multiplex immunohistochemistry which enables her to identify up to 100 proteins in a single piece of tissue. The point is to be able to identify different tissue pathologies at single cell level. The hope is that using this process that one day in the future biomarkers will be measured in a blood test to identify whether an individual has accumulated too much brain damage and provide guidance on whether the activity causing the brain damage should be stopped or modified to stop that damage occurring.
Helen's address was fascinating and provoked a series of very interesting questions at the end