Brown professor gets $486K research grant

PROVIDENCE – Brown University neurosurgery assistant professor Dr. Wael Asaad has won a $486,000 award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to study the neuroscience of Parkinson’s disease.
With the grant spread over the next three years from a Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Development Award, Asaad hopes to develop a better understanding of brain rhythms in patients with Parkinson’s disease.
Asaad is one of 17 physician-scientists around the country to win the award from the foundation, which provides early-career support to promising investigators.
“I am honored to receive this generous grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, supporting our research into normal and abnormal brain rhythms in Parkinson’s disease,” said Asaad, who also works with patients at Rhode Island Hospital and is affiliated with the Brown Institute for Brain Science.
“We aim to understand how such rhythms arise with various forms of movement, and how we can apply deep brain stimulation at just the right moments and in just the right amounts to transform bad rhythms into good ones,” Asaad said. “We hope that our work will result in tangible improvements to this effective but still imperfect therapy.” •

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