Associate Investigator Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Mass General Research Institute

Associate Professor of Surgery Harvard Medical School

Director of the NMR Surgical Laboratory Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital

brain neoplasms; burns; drosophila melanogaster; heart; lipid metabolism; magnetic resonance imaging; mitochondria; molecular magnetic resonance imaging; mr spectroscopic imaging; muscle skeletal; neoplasia; nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy; stroke; stroke recovery; traumatic brain injury My research focuses on the use of advanced imaging methodology, including multi-parametric, functional, and physiological and molecular MR imaging and MR spectroscopy, to assess different states of tissue pathology. The aims of this research are to elucidate mechanisms underlying neoplasia, stroke, injury and inflammation. Biologically important predicting biomarkers are currently being identified and characterized in experimental tissue and animal models as well as in humans. The goals of this research are to move from in vitro and ex vivo biology to in vivo physiology and integrative biology to integrate research in experimental animal models with clinical research and medicine; and to develop therapies for neoplasia, injury, and inflammation. 
While my research activities are primarily occurring in the study of human brain function in healthy or disordered populations using brain imaging (including fMRI), and I have contributed with original articles in neurodegenerative disorders, brain tumors and stroke, my research approach is strongly influenced by the fact that I was broadly trained as a Biologist and Physiologist. Indeed, my basic research interest is on mitochondrial dysfunction as the underlying cause of neurodegenerative disorders, stroke, trauma, including traumatic brain injury, cancer as well as aging. I have thus focused my basic research program on the "Dysfunction of Mitochondria in Disease".