April 2020 – Congratulations to Dave Manguerra Jr, an undergraduate student in our lab who received the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Initiative (LASURI) award for the upcoming academic year. The award will fund Dave for two semesters of research on his project related to examining neurological effects of sickle cell disease in collaboration with Dr. Robert Molokie in the Hematology/Oncology division of the Department of Medicine.
February 2020 – Congrats to Yoni Hirsch for winning Gold Prize at the annual UICOM Research Forum and to Joe Geraghty for winning first place at the UIC Laboratory of Integrated Neuroscience Spring symposium data blitz!
Yoni, Joe, and Dr. Testai all recently traveled to Los Angeles, California to present at the 2020 International Stroke Conference. Dr. Testai was a participant on team “USA/Canada” in the annual “Game of Strokes” competition. Congrats on a successful presentation and exciting conference!
January 2020 – The Testai lab is honored to receive a generous donation from Louis and Christine Freidrich for the study of new approaches to the treatment of stroke.
Welcome to the lab Dave Manguerra, Jr. and Neil Saini! Dave and Neil are both freshman students at UIC on the pre-medicine track. Dave will be working on an exciting, multidisciplinary collaboration with Hematology/Oncology on sickle cell disease, while Neil will be working with Cardiology on cardiac injury in response to brain hemorrhage.
December 2019 – The Vascular Neurology Research Lab had a very successful semester! Congrats to Tyler and Yoni for presenting their posters for the UIC Honors College and College of Medicine Research Day! Also, congratulations to Tyler for his upcoming graduation from UIC Honors College. Tyler will be joining our lab full time for the next year to work on more projects as he prepares to apply for medical school.
November 2019 – Welcome to the lab Tiffany Cheng! Tiffany is a 3rd-year medical student at UICOM interested in pursuing neurology for residency. Tiffany will be spearheading a project related to cardiac injury after subarachnoid hemorrhage.
And congratulations to Yoni Hirsch and Joe Geraghty whose abstract on inflammasome caspase-1 activity in cerebrospinal fluid of subarachnoid hemorrhage patients was accepted for a moderated poster presentation at the International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles, CA, held on February 19-21, 2020.
October 2019 – Congratulations to Tyler Lung for winning an Honors College Undergraduate Research Award! And congrats to Joseph Geraghty and co-author Milen Spegar for winning 2nd place in the UIC Neuroscience Day Poster Competition!
June 2019 – Our review paper on neuroinflammation and microvascular dysfunction after subarachnoid hemorrhage was published in the journal Neurocritical Care. Congrats to first author Joseph Geraghty and second author Joseph Davis!
May 21, 2019 – Congratulations to Yoni Hirsch, a medical student in the lab who is the recipient of the 2019 Student Scholarship in Cerebrovascular Disease and Stroke from the Scientific Councils of the American Heart Association! Yoni’s project will involve looking at activation of inflammasomes in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage and investigating their role in contributing to outcome!
April 18, 2019 – This was a big week for the Testai lab!
Both of our undergraduate students, Milen Spegar and Tyler Lung, received the Liberal Arts & Sciences Undergraduate Research Initiative (LASURI) award, which will fund them for the 2019-2020 academic year to conduct research in the lab!
At the annual Chicago Medical Student Council (CMSC) Award Ceremony, Eitan Katz was recognized as the Gold Prize Recipient for the College of Medicine Research Day and Joseph Geraghty was awarded the Maria Devens Memorial Award for Commitment to Student Wellness.
At the annual Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience (LIN) symposium, Tyler Lung was awarded 1st place in the undergraduate student poster category while Joseph Geraghty was awarded 2nd place in the graduate student poster category. The keynote speaker for this event was Dr. Jeffrey Iliff, who spoke on “Glymphatic Exchange in the Aging Brain: Sleep, Waste, and Neurodegeneration at the Crossroads of the CNS.”
April 10, 2019 – Our undergraduate students did a fantastic job presenting their research on subarachnoid hemorrhage and epilepsy at the UIC Impact & Research Day!
February 2019 – Congratulations to Joe Geraghty, Eitan Katz, and Melissa Lara-Angulo, who presented two posters at the International Stroke Conference (ISC), held at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Posters received a lot of interest from conference attendees. The titles of the two posters were “The Complement Protein C1q Is Elevated Early in Cerebrospinal Fluid after Subarachnoid Hemorrhage but Decreased in Patients with Symptomatic Vasospasm” and “Degree of Cognitive Impairment Based on Subarachnoid Hemorrhage-Associated Early Brain Injury.”
Welcome Milen Spegar and Yoni Hirsch to the lab! Milen is an undergraduate studying Biological Sciences at UIC who will be conducting in vitro and clinical studies related to subarachnoid hemorrhage and epilepsy. Yoni is a medical student at UICOM who will be assisting with various clinical projects.
January 2019 – Congratulations to Joe Geraghty, who presented his thesis work on “Neuroinflammation after Subarachnoid Hemorrhage as a Driver of Epileptic Networks” at the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Neuroimmune Communication in Health & Disease in Ventura, California. The conference was an excellent way to network with other neuroimmunologists studying a wide array of mechanisms and neurological conditions.
December 2018 – Congratulations to Eitan Katz, who was accepted to the UIC College of Medicine James Scholar Program for Independent Study. Eitan will be working on using our clinical database and patient samples to better understand the relationship between inflammatory biomarkers and outcome after subarachnoid hemorrhage.
November 2018 – The Testai lab was selected to receive two awards from the UICOM Research Day –Eitan Katz was the First Place Winner in the Medical Student Competition for his poster titled “Early Complement Activation in Cerebrospinal Fluid of Patients with Subarachnoid Hemorrhage” and Joseph Geraghty was the Second Place Winner in the Graduate Student and MD-PhD Student Competition for his poster titled “Neuroimmune Implications for Long-Term Electrographic and Behavioral Abnormalities Seen after Subarachnoid Hemorrhage.” Two of our collaborators were also recognized, Allison Kirchner and Biswajit Maharathi, for their posters. Overall, a great day for the UICOM Vascular Neurology Research Lab.
We are also excited to welcome Tyler Lung, an Honor’s College undergraduate student at UIC studying Neuroscience to the lab!
September 2018 – Congratulations to Eitan Katz, who was selected to receive the American Academy of Neurology(AAN) Medical Student Research Scholarship, for studying inflammatory biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid of subarachnoid hemorrhage patients.
July 2018 – Congratulations to Joseph Geraghty for receiving a highly-competitive NRSA F31 fellowship grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)! His project is titled, “Targeting Neuroinflammation in Subarachnoid Hemorrhage-Induced Epilepsy and Neurobehavioral Impairment,” under the co-mentorship of Dr. Fernando Testai and Dr. Jeffrey Loeb. The fellowship will support Joseph and his research for up to three years.
June 2018 – We are excited to welcome Alexander Tate to the lab, who will be joining us as a full-time Research Assistant. Alex graduated from the UIC Honor’s College in May 2018 with a B.S. in Neuroscience and is interested in pursuing a combined M.D./Ph.D. program in the future.
May 2018 – Joseph Geraghty was featured in Illinois Medicine magazine (check it out here on page 48) for his neuroscience research, role as President of the Chicago Medical Student Council (CMSC), and his contributions to the design of the new UICOM medical student curriculum.
August 2017 – Congratulations to Dr. Testai, who received the 2016 UI Health Physician of the Year Award, in recognition for his passion in ensuring that patients receive the best possible care.
Vascular Neurology Research Laboratory 