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:
(A) Translational Neuroscience Track – “From biology to translation“: Our goals are to (1) to identify and describe the basic pathogenic mechanisms implicated in these disorders, and (2) to use these new insights to inform biomarker research and development, develop innovative therapies, delay or stop disease development and, as a result, save lives.
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?
These studies may provide novel insights into potential biomarkers and therapies for stroke. Our research group’s mission is to find and test new disease-modifying medicines and biomarkers for stroke and post-stroke neurodegeneration.
(B) Global Neurology Track – “Population and Systems“: Our goals are to (1) to study the impact of socioeconomic inequalities on cardiovascular and brain health, and (2) to identify and develop systems-level interventions for early screening, prevention, and rapid access to time-critical treatment for neurological, cardiometabolic, and mental (NCM) patients.
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.
(C) Policy and Impact Track: Our goal is to advance practice, and build policy, research, and health system capacity.
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.
(D) Global Health Neurology Innovations Track: Our goal is to develop innovative tools to address pressing challenges in global health neurology.
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 Bhaskar | Significance 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 Bhaskar | Machine learning in predicting outcomes after reperfusion therapy in acute ischaemic stroke patients |