Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving African Americans. Howard University is one of the nation's oldest and largest historically Black academic health science centers, founded in 1867. The Mount Sinai Faculty Exchange Program was created to strengthen the connections between HBCUs and Mount Sinai.
Join us on Thursday, October 3, 2024 at 4pm for a special Mount Sinai Faculty Exchange Program event with Byron D. Ford, PhD as he speaks about "Neuregulin-1 for Stroke Treatment: A Journey from the Bench to Clinical Translation".
About the talk:
Stroke is the leading cause of serious long-term disability and the 5th leading cause of death in the United States. Revascularization of the occluded cerebral artery, either by thrombolysis or thrombectomy, is the only effective therapy. However, only about 5-7% of acute stroke patients in the United States receive thrombolytic revascularization, so there is a significant need to develop new therapeutic strategies for stroke. We demonstrated that neuregulin-1 (NRG-1) reduced ischemic stroke-induced neuronal death and neuroinflammation in rodent stroke models with a therapeutic window of >13 hours. In addition, NRG-1 prevented neuronal injury in animal models of hemorrhagic stroke. NRG-1 administration also resulted in a significant improvement of neurological function when administered 3 days following stroke, suggesting a role in neuronal repair. NRG1 is currently in a phase III human clinical trial for heart failure and showed significant efficacy for improving cardiac function human patients. These findings could support the development of clinical studies using NRG-1 alone or in conjunction with other therapies, such as thrombolysis and thrombectomy, for the treatment of patients with acute stroke. If successful, this study could aid in the progression of NRG-1 towards clinical trial, FDA approval and development of a new treatment for stroke.