An Update on the BIAA Research Grants Programs

Injury to the brain can evolve over time into a lifelong health condition called chronic brain injury (CBI), which may impair the brain and other organ systems and persist or progress over an individual’s life span. Little is known about how or why this happens.

In 2019, the Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA) established its research grant program with the goal of “Finding Cures for Chronic Brain Injury” thanks to a generous bequest from the estate of Dr. Linda Redmann coupled with funds from BIAA’s reserves. Each year, researchers from across the country can apply for dissertation grants of up to $5,000 and seed grants of up to $25,000 to fund scholarly work that seeks to answer questions and further our understanding of CBI. Since 2019, donors have generously contributed to the Brain Injury Research Fund, which has made it possible for BIAA to support more than $170,000 in research projects to date.

Below, we checked in with three of the 2021 BIAA Research Grant Award recipients to see how their careers in brain injury research were impacted by the grants we awarded and what new lines of inquiry they are pursuing now.

Dana Lengel

Childhood TBI and Psychosocial Disorders      

Dana Lengel, Ph.D., Drexel University was awarded a dissertation grant of $5,000 for her project “The Role of FK506- binding Protein 51 (FKBP5) in Long- term Psychosocial Outcomes of Pediatric TBI.” Her project examined how to mitigate the risk of psychosocial disorders that can emerge in adolescence and adulthood among children who survive traumatic brain injury. Dr. Lengel’s dissertation grant was supported by a generous gift from Dr. Lance and Mrs. Laura Trexler.

“Receiving the dissertation award from BIAA was an extremely important accomplishment during my graduate training. The support from this award helped to fund important preclinical research on novel treatments for cognitive and stress-related impairments following pediatric traumatic brain injury. The results from these studies have led to two original manuscripts, one of which was recently published in Journal of Neurotrauma and another which was recently submitted for publication. These results are also being followed up on in the laboratory in the form of an NIH Research Project Grant Program (R01) submission. Since receiving the dissertation award, I have defended my dissertation and graduated from the Ph.D. program at Drexel University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The BIAA grant has overall had an immeasurable impact on my research, and was instrumental in allowing me to execute my graduate research project and continue into a successful career in science.”

Kathryn Lenz

Sex-Specific Immune Responses to Childhood TBI

Kathryn Lenz, Ph.D., The Ohio State University Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research, was awarded a seed grant of $25,000 for her project “Pediatric TBI effects on long- term myelination: sex specificity and neuroimmune modulation.” Her project is examining sex-specific inflammatory functions and immune responses of the brain, which could help discover new strategies to treat or prevent long-term outcomes of childhood TBI.

“Our studies on pediatric brain injury have been progressing rapidly. We have exciting new data showing unique sex differences in the brain’s immune response to pediatric brain injury in a rodent model that are totally different from those seen in adult TBI. The BIAA seed funding has been instrumental to catalyzing our initial project development, begin related collaborative and ancillary projects, and allowed our team to apply for other funding, including major grants from NIH. We have begun an exciting new project based on our BIAA seed project to study the combined effects of early life adversity and pediatric TBI on brain development. We have recently received a Department of Defense Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health grant to study the effects of early life adversity on risk for TBI-induced psychiatric complications.”

Coleen Atkins

Early Life Stress and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Coleen Atkins, Ph.D., University of Miami Miller School of Medicine was awarded a seed grant of $25,000 for her project “The Effects of Early Life Stress on Outcome after Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.” Her project examined how early life stress can limit recovery from a mTBI and tested an anti-inflammatory drug to see if it improved recovery after mTBI and stress.

“The major objective of this project was to determine if chronic stress limits recovery after a mild TBI. The BIAA grant provided us with support to investigate how immune cells in the brain, microglia, are altered with chronic early life stress. We found that chronic early life stress primes microglia. A subsequent mTBI after chronic early life stress activates inflammatory signaling in the microglia, which worsens pathology in the brain and causes persistent cognitive deficits. Treatment with an anti-inflammatory treatment after mild TBI reduced the microglia activation and improved cognition. Thanks to support by the BIAA grant, we used the data from this project to successfully apply for and received a five year grant from the Veterans Administration Rehabilitation R&D Service.”