Changsi Cai

The aim is to minimise damage caused by cerebral ischaemia

When someone has a stroke, the clot must be removed quickly to ensure that the blood flow is obstructed for as short a time as possible.

This is important in order to minimise the damage that occurs when the blood supply is cut off from parts of the brain and the supply of oxygen and nutrients to these regions is temporarily constricted.

However, even if the doctors manage to remove the clot quickly, both brain tissue and the small blood vessels – capillaries – will have a tendency to continue to develop damage for some time afterwards.

The question is whether we can reduce this damage?

Changsi Cai – 38, an associate professor at the Department of Neuroscience, University of Copenhagen – will use her Lundbeck Foundation Fellowship to establish a research group that will attempt to answer this question by taking a closer look at blood flow in the small cerebral capillaries.

She will conduct animal trials to try to map molecular factors that play a part in directing pericytes – muscle cells which act like valves by regulating blood flow in the capillaries.

The assumption is that a better understanding of how these “valves” actually work could be a starting point for the design of therapies to reduce the damage caused by cerebral ischaemia.

Changsi Cai is receiving a grant worth DKK 10 million.