UQCCR Seminar Series - Assistant Professor Tommy Wood

Dr. Tommy Wood is and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Neuroscience at the University of Washington and Director of the Neonatal Neuroscience Lab, where his work in basic and translational neuroscience investigates the factors that contribute to brain health across the lifespan. He received an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, a medical degree from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in physiology and neuroscience from the University of Oslo. His work focuses on the development of clinically relevant animal models of premature and hypoxic-ischemic (HI) term brain injury as well as adult traumatic brain injury and using these models to investigate mechanisms of injury and response to promising neuroprotective strategies. Over the past decade he has developed, implemented, and analyzed data from injury models in multiple species including ferrets, piglets, nonhuman primates, and rodents as well as being a statistician for several clinical trials and large observational datasets. Tommy serves as associate editor of the Wiley Journal Lifestyle Medicine, is a founding Trustee and Honorary Fellow of the British Society for Lifestyle Medicine, serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the dementia prevention charity Food for the Brain, and has acted as a performance coach for world class athletes in a dozen sports, particularly Formula 1 drivers.

Overview: Preterm birth and neonatal brain injury remain some of the most significant contributors to neurological morbidity and mortality worldwide, with few treatment options currently available to directly treat brain injuries in newborn infants. This seminar will describe some of the novel high-throughput and translational methods the Neonatal Neuroscience Lab and their collaborators are using to test promising therapies and injury biomarkers for newborn brain injury across complementary in vitro, in vivo, and clinical datasets. As the importance of considering determinants of brain health and function cross the entire life course is also increasingly being appreciated, the seminar will include some emerging evidence and theoretical models to discuss how ideas stemming from the developmental neuroscience fields may help inform strategies for maintaining cognitive function and reducing dementia risk later in life.