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Kempuraj Duraisamy, Ph.D.

Co-Director, E.M. Papper Laboratory of Clinical Immunology

Associate Professor, Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine, Nova Southeastern University

Dr. Kempuraj is an Associate Professor and Director of the Research Laboratory at the Institute for Neuroimmune Medicine, Dr. K.P.C.O,M, Nova Southeastern University. He earned his M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in Human Physiology/Neuroscience. He has been studying neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration and mast cells for over 25 years. He has expertise in neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and traumatic brain injury (TBI), neurotherapeutics, and mast cell disorders and published over 175 research articles in scientific journals and presented over 250 Conference Abstracts in these research areas.

His studies focused on the NVU/BBB disruption and damage, glial cell activation, endothelial cells and pericytes damage, neurodegeneration, neuroinflammatory markers, and neurotoxic mediators, cytokines, chemokines and growth factors in these diseases using human brain tissues from patients, animal models and in vitro brain cell culture models. Demonstrated mast cells are implicated in AD, PD, and TBI human brains, animal model brains and mast cell co-cultures cultures with brain cells. He has expertise in the early ocular markers for open-field blast exposure-induced ocular and brain injuries and therapeutics. His studies especially focused on neurovascular pathologies and biomarker analysis in active US military personnel and Veterans with TBI. These cutting-edge research studies were conducted through grants from NIH, the US Department of Defense (DOD), the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and from the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine. 

Dr. Kempuraj has long-time expertise and special research interest in NVU/BBB pathologies and served several times in the NIH “Brain Injury and Neurovascular Pathologies” Study Sections and other neuroscience Study Sections for grant reviews. He also edited a special issue on “BBB Modulation and Dysfunction in Brain Diseases” in the journal Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience. He is involved in the routine maintenance of lab, human brain cells and mast cell cultures, study design and execution of experiments, assays including brain-on-a chip analysis using AXION MEA system and NETRI microfluidics system, mast cell and neuroinflammatory panel development, training and supervision of scientists, research assistants, medical students and undergraduate students.

  • U54 center grant - Patient subgroups, novel biomarker signatures and In vitro neuroinflammation modeling using activation of human microglia in the pathogenesis and treatment of ME/CFS
    • MPIs: N Klimas & TC Theoharides; Key Personnel/Co-Core Lead: Kempuraj Duraisamy
  • Department of Defense (DoD) “Biomarkers of neuroinflammation, brain organoid disease surrogate and use of eriodyctiol in the pathogenesis and treatment of AD”
    • PI: Theoharides Co-I: Kempuraj Duraisamy
  • Submitted VA Merit grant application entitled “Targeted Gene Therapy and Nanomedicine Approaches to Treat Corneal Diseases”
    • PI: Rajiv R. Mohan; Key Personnel/Co-I: Kempuraj Duraisamy
  • Submitted VA Merit grant application entitled “Targeted Gene Therapy and Nanomedicine Approaches to Treat Corneal Diseases”
    • PI: Rajiv R. Mohan; Key Personnel/Co-I: Kempuraj Duraisamy.
2022
  • Carbofuran pesticide toxicity to the eye
    • Kempuraj D, Zhang E, Gupta S, Gupta RC, Sinha NR, Mohan RR. Exp Eye Res. 2022 Dec 23;227:109355. doi: 10.1016/j.exer.2022.109355. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36572166.
  • Corneal stromal repair and regeneration
    • Mohan RR, Kempuraj D, D'Souza S, Ghosh A. Prog Retin Eye Res. 2022 May 29:101090. doi: 10.1016/j.preteyeres.2022.101090. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35649962.
 
2021
 
2020
  • Current Trends in Biomarkers for Traumatic Brain Injury
    • Mehta T, Fayyaz M, Giler GE, Kaur H, Raikwar SP, Kempuraj D, Selvakumar GP, Ahmed ME, Thangavel R, Zaheer S, Iyer S, Govindarajan R, Zaheer A. Open Access J Neurol Neurosurg. 2020;12(4):86-94. Epub 2020 Jan 8. PMID: 32775958; PMCID: PMC7410004.

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