Research

Our Research

We pursue interdisciplinary research on underlying mechanisms of brain health and diseases, social determinants of population health, and health disparities spanning from macro (social and policy determinants) to individual-level (biomedical/imaging determinants).

Delineation of underlying mechanisms of, and reduction in socioeconomic inequalities in, neurological, cardiometabolic, and mental (NCM) diseases is important to advance brain health globally and sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Several neurological conditions presently have no viable treatments, and their prevalence and burden are expected to rise dramatically in the future decades – hence, posing a major global health and societal challenge. As a result, finding new therapeutic targets and developing improved treatments to delay or stop disease development, as well as to develop health-systems and policy interventions to reduce the burden of these diseases, especially on the vulnerable populations, and innovative global health tools/platforms are critical.

Our lab is dedicated to translational research, with the aim to discover mechanistic insights into NCM diseases such as stroke, and develop novel diagnostic tools, prognostic biomarkers, and therapeutics.

We harness data-driven approaches to accelerate biomarker research & innovation and improve access and apply a health systems lens to improve the delivery of time-critical treatments such as reperfusion therapy, patient selection, and outcomes for cardiovascular and neurological health and diseases.

As long as our brain is a mystery, the universe, the reflection of the structure of the brain will also be a mystery.”

― Dr Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1906

Research Themes

Our research program is centered around four research tracks:

Despite the advent of reperfusion therapy, access to intravenous thrombolysis and endovascular thrombectomy is limited by a strict time window and reperfusion injury. Besides, a majority of stroke patients are not eligible for or do not have access to, reperfusion therapy.

From the pathophysiological perspective, we’re interested in how the brain (lesion topography, stroke etiology, and brain collaterals) and the immune system interact after a stroke, and how these interactions modulate the neurovascular unit, influencing the regulation of cerebral blood flow and blood-brain barrier (BBB) function, to mediate post-stroke outcomes. Brain ischemia disrupts the balanced brain-immune connectivity. Our underlying questions are: (1) what are the effects of the immune system on neuronal damage and recovery?, (2) what is the role of arterial and venous collaterals in modulating immune response after acute brain injury?, (3) what are the various pathways by which immune cells migrate to the brain during the acute, sub-acute and chronic phases?, (4) how are these pathways of immune cell migration modulated by BBB after brain ischemia?, (5) what role immune system and various pathways play in immunomodulation after stroke? (6) how do brain ischemia and reperfusion regulate autophagy and inflammation in neural tissue? and (7) what pathogenetic or molecular pathways are implicated in the mutual regulation of autophagy and inflammation?

On a population level, we are interested in socioeconomic factors, and environmental determinants of the brain, cardiovascular and metabolic health, and diseases.

From a systems perspective, we wish to identify comprehensive and intersecting priorities and interventions to address underlying causes, prevention, and treatment of NCM diseases as well as optimal practices/strategies to promote overall NCM health leveraging “salutogenic” and social capital approach to sustainable health and wellbeing.

Developing policy for capacity building and implementation on a population level to address the disproportionate burden of NCM diseases on vulnerable populations including – but not limited to – vulnerable populations and those from low-resource settings.

Under this track, our focus is on developing policy and practice recommendations to mitigate the acute and ongoing impact of COVID-19 on health systems and vulnerable populations.

The program is centered around developing low-cost, open-source, and scalable innovative solutions, including accessible diagnostic, therapeutic, and prognostic tools and technologies, to address pressing global challenges with a focus on low-resource settings.

Our multi-level research approach

To achieve this goal, our research program employs clinically relevant models of human disease as well as patient-derived samples. We also harness a mixed-methods approach, leveraging evidence from meta-analysis and systematic reviews, population-level data/surveys, registries, biobanks, and clinical trials with appropriate socioeconomic, clinical, imaging, and pathology datasets.

We combine mathematical optimization, multi-scale modeling, big data analytics, and knowledge modeling, including artificial intelligence and machine learning-based system-modeling approaches, to develop tailored solutions.

List of specific projects currently underway in our lab (to read more about members of our team and their research, please click here);

Student (MD Honours/Ph.D.)Research Project  
Student: Chenyu Shi/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: A/Prof Murray Killingsworth
Hyper density MCA sign and brain clot composition in ischemic stroke  
Student: Anubhav Katyal/UNSW Medicine (Recipient of UNSW Medicine Honors Scholarship) Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisors: A/Prof Murray Killingsworth
Value of pre-intervention CT imaging in prognosis in acute ischemic stroke    
Student: Abina Vishni Ravindran/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: A/Prof Murray Killingsworth
Role of collaterals on pre-intervention computed tomography angiography in acute ischemic stroke  
Student: Prithvi Santana Baskar/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: A/Prof Dennis Cordato & Dr. Daniel Wardman
TEFLON-ED – optimizing emergency department pathways to improve acute stroke reperfusion therapy delivery
Student: Seemub Chowdhury/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: A/Prof Dennis Cordato & Dr. Daniel Wardman
TEFLON-I – optimizing pre-hospital pathways to improve acute stroke reperfusion therapy delivery
Student: Shirin Shaban/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: A/Prof Murray Killingsworth
Value of digital subtraction angiography (DSA) in acute ischemic stroke
Student: Sian Alexandra Bradley/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: A/Prof Murray Killingsworth
Impact of pre-morbid diabetes on outcomes after acute ischemic stroke
Student: Jeremy Tan/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: A/Prof Murray Killingsworth
Role of acute stroke workflow in acute ischemic stroke
Student: Divyansh Sharma/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: A/Prof Kevin Spring
Neutrophil-Lymphocyte Ratio in Acute Stroke Prognosis
Student: Aarushi Rastogi/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: A/Prof Murray Killingsworth
Role of white matter lesions in acute ischemic stroke and cerebrovascular diseases
Student: Akansha Sharma/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: A/Prof Murray Killingsworth
Systems-level approaches to streamline acute stroke workflow to reduce reperfusion therapy delays – TEFLON
Student: Gabi Mohammed/Western Sydney University Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sonu BhaskarSignificance of Huckmann’s Number and Evan’s Ratio in Neurology
Student: Rohan Maheshwari/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: A/Prof Dennis Cordato and Dr. Daniel Wardman
Infective endocarditis in stroke: a case-controlled study
Student: Joanna Huang/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: Prof Murray Killingsworth
Clot morphology in acute ischemic stroke decision making  
Student: Ming-Yee Sun/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: Prof Murray Killingsworth
Stroke in cancer patients – the risk of blood clotting and acute stroke & post-stroke prognosis in cancer patients undergoing chemo/radiation therapy
Student: Shuyue Chen/UNSW Medicine Primary Supervisor: Dr Sonu Bhaskar
Co-Supervisor: Prof Murray Killingsworth
Lesion topography and radiological biomarkers in the prognosis of acute ischemic stroke after endovascular thrombectomy
Student: Milena Mitkov/University of Sydney Primary Supervisor: Dr. Sonu BhaskarMachine learning in predicting outcomes after reperfusion therapy in acute ischaemic stroke patients
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