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2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000

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Dr. Robert Carter, Neurosurgery, 2003 Rappaport Research Scholar

Dr. Carter and his team have developed a new strategy for "starving" human brain tumors by decreasing their ability to grow new blood vessels. This was done by creating blocking proteins, which bind to the major molecule, VEGF, that is used by brain tumors to develop new blood vessel growth. With support from the Rappaport Foundation, three different adeno-associated viral vectors encoding these blocking proteins were produced. The team is now in a testing phase of pre-clinical mouse models. The group hopes to complete pre-clinical testing in 2004, and, if successful, apply to the FDA for approval for testing in human brain tumor patients.

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Dr. Diana Rosas, Neurology, 2002 Rappaport Research Scholar

Since joining the Neurology faculty, Dr. Rosas has focused her research activities on brain imaging of patients with cognitive disorders, particularly Huntington’s disease. She was promoted to assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and has been successful in getting independent funding from NIH.

As a Rappaport Scholar, she was able to purchase key equipment needed to perform sophisticated data analyses required to develop and validate surrogate biomarkers for Huntington’s disease. She was also able to provide partial salary support for a laboratory research assistant and other related laboratory and office supplies.

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Dr. Lee Goldstein, Psychiatry, 2001 Rappaport Research Scholar

Dr. Goldstein has developed a breakthrough optical imaging device that is able to identify a marker of early Alzheimer's disease. Eventually, such a test might be used to measure the effectiveness of new strategies to treat or prevent Alzheimer's symptoms and to diagnose the disease in its earliest stages, when new treatments are likely to be most effective. Dr. Goldstein is associate director for Basic Research at the Center for Ophthalmic Research of the BWH Department of Surgery, a member of the psychiatry departments at MGH and BWH and the MGH Laboratory for Oxidation Biology, and assistant professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

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Emad Eskandar, Neurosurgery, 2000 Rappaport Research Scholar

Dr. Eskandar is successfully progressing along an academic track with his own lab in the newly developed Center for Nervous System Repair. His research involves the exploration and use of microelectrode recordings to define the function of the basal ganglia and with translational studies to patients with movement disorders and Parkinson's disease.

As a Rappaport Scholar, Dr. Eskandar purchased equipment and software to construct a computer system that collected high-quality intraoperative physiologic data from patients undergoing surgery to treat Parkinson disease. With this system, Dr. Eskandar initiated an IRB approved protocol to study the activity of neurons in the subthalamic nucleus during visually guided movements. The computers and interface cards are used to run the visual experiment and to store and analyze the physiologic data. Dr. Eskandar's group is currently the only one in the world conducting this kind of research. The preliminary results have been extremely interesting and are the subject of upcoming talks at the Congress of Neurologic Surgeons Meeting and American Association of Neurology meeting. In addition, Dr. Eskandar has submitted one paper and is preparing another at the present time.