Dr. Amy Wagner, Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, received a $6.7 million award from the Department of Defense’s CDMRP traumatic brain injury (TBI)-Psychological Health research program. The project titled, MicroBLAST, will use pre-clinical models and clinical populations with mild, moderate, and severe TBI, to study outcomes. This Program Project uses four related projects to address research questions in clinical and preclinical settings. Project 1 identifies key microglial molecular mechanisms and biomarker patterns associated with both an accelerated aging/cellular senescence environment and the benefit of autophagy in multiple TBI models. We propose these mechanisms play a crucial role in TBI pathophysiology, clinical recovery, and development of secondary conditions. Projects 2-3: use clinical cohort studies and a biomarkers-based approach to assess how personal biology, injury associated microglial inflammasome induction and autophagy markers, as well as ongoing cellular senescence, perpetuate brain injury, produce persistent neurological and psychological health deficits, and impact TBI recovery. Project 4 examines how toll-like receptor 4 antagonism and dietary intervention may reduce chronic inflammation and promote repair and recovery in TBI models reflecting civilian and military TBI. Dr. Wagner’s external network collaborators include Drs. David Loane, Trinity College Dublin and John Wu and Aviva Symes, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Safar Center collaborators include Drs. Patrick Kochanek, Robert Clark, and Ashley Russell who will lead the pre-clinical studies at the Safar Center and serve as a cross project liaison. Other Pitt faculty collaborators working with Dr. Wagner to lead various aspects of the clinical projects include Drs. Anthony Kontos (Orthopaedic Surgery) David Barton (Emergency Medicine), Tae Kim (Radiology), Joseph Mettenberg (Radiology), Yvette Conley (Nursing and Human Genetics), and Jenna Carlson (Human Genetics and Biostatistics). This project is an expansion of Dr. Wagner’s growing clinical and translational TBI research program combining a mechanistic and biomarkers-based (Rehabilomics) approach toward precision care for TBI survivors.