Epilepsy Foundation Announces Three Research Grant Awards

By Adam Modzelesky
EpilepsyUSA staff
Posted: July 18, 2005

Three research grants, totaling $470,000, were awarded by the Epilepsy Foundation at the Distinguished Achievement Awards Gala in New York City on May 26.

The largest grant, totaling $240,000, was awarded to Frances E. Jensen, M.D., of Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Jensen's study will use an animal model to assess the anticonvulsant and antiepileptogenic efficacy of the medication talampanel and its effect in modulating the AMPA-receptor responses in neonatal seizures and brain injury. Her aim is to develop a preliminary non-oral form of talampanel that is easily administered to human infants.

Researchers Bi-Botti Celestin Youan, PharmD, Ph.D. and Karin Borges, Ph.D., of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Pharmacy, were the recipients of a $130,000 grant. They will be studying the efficacy of spray-dried biocompatible microparticles of phenytoin, which when injected into the brain may result in optimal therapeutic anticonvulsant concentrations and seizure control. The ultimate goal is to engineer novel, safe and effective therapies for long-term treatment for patients who are pharmacoresistant and not candidates for surgery.

The final grant, awarded to Leon Iasemidis, Ph.D., Kostas Tsakalis, Ph.D. and David Treiman, M.D., of the Arizona State University Barrow Neurological Institute, totaled $100,000. This grant was partially funded by The Ali Paris Fund for Landau-Kleffner Syndrome Research & Education. It will explore and test a closed-loop electrical stimulation method on an animal model of chronic epilepsy using seizure prediction and intervention algorithms. The researchers' aims are to be able to predict and avert seizures long before their clinical and electrographic onset.