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The Chief Scientist Office of the Government of Scotland has awarded a collaborative grant of £298,966 to Dr Mootaz Salman to seek new therapeutic avenues to treat stroke.

DPAG Leverhulme Trust Fellow Dr Mootaz Salman will collaborate with principal investigator Dr Lorraine Work from the University of Glasgow, together with Professor Roslyn Bill and Dr Stuart Greenhill from Aston University. Over a two-year project, the research team will establish whether the combined targeting of oedema (brain swelling) and neuronal plasticity (the capacity of the nervous system to modify itself) can be used as a new therapeutic framework to treat stroke.

This new research objective will expand the translation of a drug candidate that has been described in their groundbreaking research published in the journal Cell in 2020 and a follow-up paper in BBA-Biomembranes in 2021, where Dr Mootaz Salman was both the co-first and corresponding author. In their 2021 paper, the team demonstrated compelling evidence that the drug - the FDA-approved antipsychotic medication known as trifluoperazine (TFP) - has the potential to stop the swelling in the brain that occurs after a stroke or other cerebral injury.

Read more about their 2020 research on the Harvard Medical School website: 'Brain Protection: Drug that reduces swelling may help protect against brain and spinal cord injury'.

Read more about their 2021 findings on the DPAG website: 'The future of stroke treatment'.