Graduate Student Publishes Research Related to Stroke

Biomedical Sciences: Medical Physics graduate student Ben Buller is preparing to defend his PhD dissertation on Thursday, October 28 (9-11 am in 350 HHS, all are welcome). After obtaining their degree, most graduate students seek to publish parts of their dissertation in leading scientific journals. Buller is one of those rare students who publishes his graduate research before finishing his dissertation. His paper MicroRNA-21 Protects Neurons From Ischemic Death appeared in the October issue of the FEBS Journal, published by the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (Volume 277, Pages 4299-4307). Distinguished Professor Michael Chopp, Buller’s mentor in the Department of Physics, is a coauthor on the study, and the senior author is adjunct faculty member Zheng-Gang Zhang. The research was carried out in the Department of Neurology at Henry Ford Hospital. Part of their abstract is presented below:

MicroRNAs are small RNAs that attenuate protein expression by complementary binding to the 3'-UTR of a target mRNA. Currently, very little is known about microRNAs after cerebral ischemia. In particular, microRNA-21 (miR-21) is a strong antiapoptotic factor in some biological systems. We investigated the role of miR-21 after stroke in the rat. … Our data indicate that overexpression of miR-21 protects against ischemic neuronal death, and that downregulation of FASLG, a tumor necrosis factor-alpha family member and an important cell death-inducing ligand whose gene is targeted by miR-21, probably mediates the neuroprotective effect. These novel findings suggest that miR-21 may be an attractive therapeutic molecule for treatment of stroke.

Buller is supported by a fellowship from the American Heart Association, and the research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.