Welcome to the Grant Lab

The collaborative spirit of research at Stanford offers an incredibly rich environment to foster interdisciplinary scholarly efforts focusing on the blood-brain barrier (BBB). My laboratory is focusing on the molecular characterization of the blood-brain barrier in and around brain tumors. This highly translational research will help deepen our understanding of how to outwit the blood-brain barrier to deliver chemotherapeutics to the brain as well as how to better target these therapies to avoid nonspecific systemic toxicity. This strategy is especially important in chlildren since we would like to avoid radiation therapy whenever possible, but our best drugs are often too large to penetrate the blood-tumor barrier. As the laboratory continues to expand in scope and depth, I will continue to mentor the career development of students and postdoctoral fellows in the lab focusing on the BBB. The BBB is an incredibly dynamic organ that is comprised of many cell types including brain endothelial cells, astrocytes, pericytes, microglia, neurons, and the extracellular matrix. Our laboratory focuses on the in vivo characterization of the BBB using orthotopic mouse models with human brain tumor xenografts. We perform high resolution MRI scans using dynamic contrast enhanced imaging to calculate the BBB permeability. We also perform dynamic imaging using 2-photon microscopy through the cranial window which we surgically implant. We are able to watch the tumor grow in vivo through the glass window and then determine the pore size for various sized fluorescent dextran tracers. For every experiment we run, we always consider its translational potential since the goal of our work is to be able to penetrate the BBB to reach beyond the barrier in a child with a malignant brain tumor and lead to a cure.