The Safar Center is host to a variety of research programs targeting brain injury from the field to rehabilitation
As a multidisciplinary research facility, the Safar Center is host to a variety of research programs targeting brain injury from the field to rehabilitation. Many of these programs involve long running collaborations between departments. Our programs span the spectrum of ages from infants to adults and include Traumatic Brain Injury, Abusive Head Trauma, Cardiac Arrest, Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation, Hemorrhagic Shock, and Combat Casualty Care, and Rehabilitation of CNS Injury. Center investigators work closely with the clinical depts. of Critical Care Medicine, Surgery, Neurological Surgery, Anesthesiology, Emergency Medicine, and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at both the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. In addition to basic research, the Safar Center also provides training to the next generation of resuscitation researchers. A few of our special programs are featured below.
T32
The Pediatric Neurointensive Care and Resuscitation Research Fellowship
The Pediatric Neurointensive Care and Resuscitation Research fellowship is one of the few T-32 fellowship programs in the field of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. Drs. Patrick Kochanek and Robert Clark are the Principal Investigators and the Program Directors of this training grant opportunity (5T32HD040686) that is funded by the National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The T-32 program is designed to advance the research training of two new postdoctoral fellows each year for a two or three-year term. Trainees (either an MD or PhD, or MD, PhD) work and train on clinical, translational, or basic science research relevant to the fields of Pediatric neurointensive care and resuscitation –in the broadest sense. Trainees are mentored by an outstanding faculty of senior scientists at the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research and other laboratories in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pharmacy, and Public Health, among others. The research focus is on injury mechanisms, novel diagnostics and therapeutics, and outcomes, predominantly in the areas of traumatic brain injury, cardiac arrest, and neurocritical care. The opportunities and faculty address key issues in resuscitation medicine in infants and children from the field through the emergency department, intensive care unit, and on to rehabilitation and long-term outcome. The T-32 program supports trainees from fields as diverse as pediatric critical care medicine, emergency medicine, neurological surgery, physical medicine and rehabilitation, child neurology, neonatology, and radiology. Many of these trainees also receive advanced degrees such as a Master’s of Clinical Research, Health Administration, Medical Education, Health Informatics, or Intelligent Systems, among others. The over 40 program alumni have gone on to publish major findings, win multiple awards, garner NIH or other National funding as independent investigators, and to become academic leaders in their respective fields. Many of the trainees achieved careers of National prominence.
NIH-Funded Research Positions in Pediatric Neurointensive Care and Resuscitation Research
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Two-year research fellowship positions focused on career development in the area of pediatric neurointensive care are anticipated for physicians who have completed at least two years of clinical fellowship training in pediatric critical care medicine.
Safar Center Current Fellows
Safar Center T32 Fellow Dr. Amy Maury
Dr. Amy Maury earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from American University, where her doctoral research was part of a Phase III clinical trial evaluating a low glutamate diet’s effects on psychiatric symptoms, inflammation, and the gut microbiome in Gulf War Illness.
Safar Center T32 Fellow Mohammed Shaik, MD, PhD
Dr. Mohammed Shaik earned his Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering summa cum laude from Columbia University, where he later completed both his MD and PhD in Biomedical Engineering.
Safar Center T32 Fellow Hugues Yver, MD
Hugues Yver, MD received his bachelor’s degree in Physiology with honours from McGill University and his medical degree from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Safar Center T32 Fellow Eleni Moschonas, PhD
Dr. Eleni Moschonas is a T32 postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Shaun Carlson at the University of Pittsburgh, where she investigates synaptic vulnerability and circuit-level disruptions following experimental traumatic brain injury (TBI).