Affiliation: University of Minnesota

Dr. Susanna R. Var is a postdoctoral fellow in the PharmacoNeuroImmunology program at the University of Minnesota. Her main field of study is neuroimmunology. Currently, she is examining the role of neuroinflammation in TBI and stroke using cell-based approaches to modulate the inflammatory response in rodent and canine models. Dr. Var received her B.S. in Biology at the University of California, San Diego where she studied mitochondrial dysfunction in the central nervous system (CNS) and HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders. She earned her PhD in Biology at Western Michigan University. In her graduate research with Dr. Christine Byrd-Jacobs, she focused on characterizing microglial involvement in neural plasticity, regeneration, and functional recovery after injury to the CNS using the zebrafish model. She hopes that her research will someday lead to the development of novel methods for treating toxic and chronic neuroinflammatory processes that are found in many brain diseases and injuries.