Jaime Imitola

Jaime Imitola M.D.
Residence United States
Citizenship United States
Fields Stem Cells
Neuroscience
Computational biology
Neuroimmunology
Medical genetics
Institutions Wexner Medical Center
Harvard University
Harvard Medical School
Known for Stem cells and multiple sclerosis research
Notable awards John N. Whitaker Award Gordon Award

Jaime Imitola is a Neuroscientist, neuroimmunologist and stem cell researcher, known for his work on the impact of inflammation in the endogenous neural stem cell function and molecular programs, work that has contributed to the understanding of the neurodegeneration and the lack of repair in chronic neurological diseases including multiple sclerosis.

Education

He trained as a Post-doctoral fellow at the world-renowned Center for Neurologic Diseases at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, recently renamed the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases[1] at Harvard Medical School. Here, he studied the molecular biology of neural stem cells (NSCs) and neuroimmunology. As a faculty member at Harvard University, and affiliate Faculty of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), he established novel techniques in imaging to study immunology of neural stem cells and microglia[2] that lead to the discovery of the mechanisms of migration of Neural stem cells in Stroke and the alteration of neural stem cells self-renewal capacity in models of Multiple sclerosis by microglia activation.[3] Imitola is widely published in scientific journals and highly cited for his work in stem cells with a H-index of 33 and more than 5151 citations.[4]

Academic career

In 2004, he and his colleagues demonstrated for the first time, an inflammation-dependent mechanism for the responses of NSCs to stroke.[5] They showed that the inflammatory chemokine Stromal cell-derived factor 1 alpha released by astrocytes during stroke was responsible for the directed migration of human and mouse NSCs to areas of injury in mice, creating Injury induced stem cell niches elucidated by reporter stem cells. Both terms were coined by Imitola and Evan Y. Snyder to denote the regenerative (micro-environments) areas created after CNS damage and the ability to visualize these areas by using stem cells expressing reporter genes (i.e. LacZ).[6]

This discovery paved the way for the study of the responses of endogenous neural stem cell migration in regeneration in other neurological diseases. The work has been extensively cited[7] and reproduced by multiple labs,[8][9] and firmly established chemokines as important modulators of migration of neural stem cells not only in CNS development but also repair.[10][11][12]

Imitola has received multiple awards for his research in stem cells including the John N. Whitaker, MD [13] Award for Multiple Sclerosis research [14]

References

  1. ↑ http://give.brighamandwomens.org/stories/entry/ann-romney-center-work
  2. ↑ Imitola J, Côté D et al, Multimodal coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy reveals microglia-associated myelin and axonal dysfunction in multiple sclerosis-like lesions in mice.J Biomed Opt. 2011 Feb;16(2):021109
  3. ↑ Rasmussen S, Imitola J, Ayuso-Sacido A, Wang Y, Starossom SC, Kivisäkk P, Zhu B, Meyer M, Bronson RT, Garcia-Verdugo JM, Khoury SJ.Reversible neural stem cell niche dysfunction in a model of Multiple Sclerosis.Ann Neurol. 2011 May;69(5):878-91
  4. ↑ http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=ZdkfFMgAAAAJ&hl=en
  5. ↑ Imitola J, Raddassi K, Park KI, Mueller FJ, Nieto M, Teng YD, Frenkel D, Li J, Sidman RL, Walsh CA, Snyder EY, Khoury SJ.Directed migration of neural stem cells to sites of CNS injury by the stromal cell-derived factor 1alpha/CXC chemokine receptor 4 pathway.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Dec 28;101(52):18117-22
  6. ↑ Imitola J, Park KI, Teng YD, Nisim S, Lachyankar M, Ourednik J, Mueller FJ, Yiou R, Atala A, Sidman RL, Tuszynski M, Khoury SJ, Snyder EY.Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2004 May 29;359(1445):823-37
  7. ↑ http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=ZdkfFMgAAAAJ&citation_for_view=ZdkfFMgAAAAJ:u5HHmVD_uO8C
  8. ↑ Tran PB, Banisadr G, Ren D, Chenn A, Miller RJ.Chemokine receptor expression by neural progenitor cells in neurogenic regions of mouse brain.J Comp Neurol. 2007 Feb 20;500(6):1007-33.
  9. ↑ Carbajal KS, Schaumburg C, Strieter R, Kane J, Lane TE.Migration of engrafted neural stem cells is mediated by CXCL12 signaling through CXCR4 in a viral model of multiple sclerosis.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Jun 15;107(24):11068-73
  10. ↑ Li M, Hale JS, Rich JN, Ransohoff RM, Lathia JD.Chemokine CXCL12 in neurodegenerative diseases: an SOS signal for stem cell-based repair.Trends Neurosci. 2012 Oct;35(10):619-28. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2012.06.003
  11. ↑ http://www.sanfordburnham.org/newsandpress/archive/Pages/NewsArchiveDetail.aspx?ItemId=198
  12. ↑ http://www.alzforum.org/news/research-news/two-other-faces-inflammation-stem-cell-guidance-and-axon-repair
  13. ↑ http://archneur.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=781011
  14. ↑ http://www.brighamandwomens.org/About_BWH/publicaffairs/news/awards/Award_Honor.aspx?sub=0&PageID=1518

External links

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