The Safar Center is a key focal point of interaction among investigators studying traumatic brain injury (TBI) at the University of Pittsburgh. Through a network of collaboration developed between Drs. Patrick Kochanek (Critical Care Medicine), Donald Marion and David Adelson (Neurosurgery), a bedside-to-bench-to-bedside continuum has been developed to study mechanisms of secondary damage and evaluate novel therapies. As the core facility for laboratory studies in experimental models of TBI the University of Pittsburgh Brain Trauma Research Center, the Safar Center also provides a variety of resources, including contemporary experimental models of TBI (controlled cortical impact and diffuse injury) and state-of-the-art functional outcome assessment facilities (including Morris water maze testing). The laboratories of Drs. Patrick Kochanek, C. Edward Dixon, Robert Clark, Larry Jenkins, and P. David Adelson are housed in the center. Important collaborations are ongoing with Drs. Steven DeKosky (Psychiatry), Steven Graham (Neurology), Chien Ho (Pittsburgh NMR Center), Edwin Jackson (Pharmacology), Timothy Carlos (Medicine), Valerian Kagan (Occupational and Environmental Health), Timothy Billiar (Surgery), Stephen Wisniewski (Public Health) and Simon Watkins (Cell Imaging), among others. In addition, the Safar Center also houses a pediatric CSF bank samples collected from infants and children with severe head injury. This project is part of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Injury Control and Research (CIRCL) funded by the CDC. Examples from selected collaborative projects are provided accompanying the illustrations on this page. A complete description of all projects underway and all collaborations in the area of TBI are provided in the Safar Center Annual Report.

[home]