New Therapeutics for Traumatic Brain Injury

Kim A. Heidenreich is Professor of Pharmacology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She also serves on the Keystone Scientific Advisory Board and is Chief Scientific Advisor for the American Traumatic Brain Injury Association. Dr. Heidenreich has been conducting neuroscience research for over 30 years with continual funding in the area of neurotrophic factors, mechanisms of neuronal cell death, and recently, traumatic brain injury (TBI). Her laboratory has identified a number of protein kinase signaling pathways that trigger or prevent neuronal cell death in response to neuronal insults and neurotrophic factors, respectively. She has examined the ways in which key proapoptotic and antiapoptotic protein kinases regulate cytoplasmic, mitochondrial, and nuclear targets to control neuronal apoptosis and autophagy. Her recent studies have focused on preventing secondary brain damage after a TBI. She has recently discovered that leukotrienes, potent inflammatory lipid mediators normally absent in brain, are produced by a transcellular mechanism involving infiltrating neutrophils after TBI. Blockade of leukotriene production using 5-lipoxgenase (FLAP) inhibitors prevents edema, cell death, and cognitive deficits after TBI. These findings have important implications for treating human TBI and suggest that development of FLAP inhibitors for use in TBI is feasible for both intervention and prevention. Toward this goal, Dr. Heidenreich is currently developing FLAP inhibitors with improved CNS properties and novel delivery methods for these drugs in TBI.

As a strong advocate of Neuroscience research, Dr. Heidenreich has previously served as chair of the membership committee of the UC Denver Neuroscience Program and as President of the Rocky Mountain Neuroscience Research Group, a Colorado chapter of the Society of Neuroscience. She has mentored many pre- and post-doctoral scientists, as well as junior physician scientists, in her laboratory. She also has served as mentor for the NIH Building Research Achievement in Neuroscience (BRAiN) Training Program and was the recipient of the 2006 Dean’s Mentoring Award at her institution. Dr. Heidenreich has served on numerous study sections reviewing grants for the NIH, DOD, VA and small research granting agencies. Recently, she has been invited to speak at numerous national and international TBI conferences including the Annual Traumatic Brain Injury Conference in Washington, D.C. and the C4CT Concussion Awareness Summits, the last one held Pre-superbowl 2014 at the United Nations. She has been a recipient of research support from the State of Colorado Brain Injury Program for the past five years. Dr. Heidenreich received her undergraduate degree in Biology from Westminster College in 1974 and her Ph.D. in Physiology/Biophysics from the University of Vermont in 1979.