With RUNN Course Co-Directors
With the Late Francis Crick
RESEARCH
Two Decades of Contribution, the 1980’s. Professor Awad’s research contributions have spanned more than two decades. In the 1980’s he helped characterize ischemic brain lesions on magnetic resonance imaging, including the first work on defining clinical and pathological correlates of subcortical ischemic lesions in aging and hypertension. He defined the features of aggressive clinical course in dural arteriovenous malformations, a work widely cited and confirmed by many subsequent studies. He wrote landmark papers on intracranial meningiomas in the aged and on outcome of interventions for intracranial aneurysms. He led a series of studies on epilepsy surgery, including pioneering work on invasive electrode recording, microsurgical technique and the cognitive and seizure outcome of temporal lobe surgery, and reoperation after previous failure of epilepsy surgery. He published the first comprehensive analysis on the prevalence and natural history of cavernous angiomas (cerebral cavernous malformations).
In the 1990’s, Professor Awad described outcome analyses of surgery for giant intracranial aneurysms and refined the technique and outcome of therapeutic carotid occlusion. He published landmark articles on mixed vascular malformations of the brain, and leading articles on the molecular pathobiology of cavernous angiomas, including the first observations of active angiogenesis in these lesions. He described molecular architecture of aneurysms, arteriovenous and cavernous angiomas. In collaboration with researchers at Yale, he led the team that characterized the gene loci of cerebral cavernous malformation disease, and the special features of mutations in Hispanic Americans. He published leading work on visual outcome after management of occipital vascular malformations, and on vascular malformations in the setting of hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia. He published early results on minimally invasive evacuation of intracerebral hematoma using clot lysis approach. These early studies have served as the basis for current trials sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to better define benefit of this technique.
More recently, Professor Awad has led ongoing research projects aiming at improving care of hemorrhagic stroke, including ongoing NIH sponsored multi-institutional trial assessing minimally invasive strategies of hematoma evacuation (MISTIE Trial), where Evanston Hospital is one of only 8 Centers nationally and the leading national site for enrollment in that study. He has served on the Data Monitoring and Safety Committee for the parallel project of clot lysis in intraventricular hemorrhage (CLEAR IVH Phase II Trial), and is Co-Principal Investigator and Director of the Surgical Center for the newly NIH-Funded CLEAR III prospective rendomized trial involving 50-70 institutions worldwide.
Current basic research focuses on the molecular mechanisms predisposing to the genesis and growth of cerebrovascular anomalies, highly prevalent lesions that predispose to stroke and epilepsy. Active projects include screening for somatic mutations in the cerebrovascular malformations (mutations in the lesions themselves), molecular markers of quiescent versus aggressive lesions, inflammatory and immune mechanisms contributing to lesion evolution, and advanced magnetic resonance imaging of lesion genesis and progression. Professor Awad’s basic science research has been supported by the NIH since 1998, including a prestigious midcareer development award in patient oriented research (2001-2006), and recent RO1 award through 2013.
