In the first installment of our series recognizing June as Alzheimer’s and Brain Health Awareness Month, we highlighted Drs. Amar Sahay and Florence Lai. Learn more about their work to fight Alzheimer’s disease (AD) at the link below!

In the second installment, we highlight two more approaches to AD research with Susanne Janneke Van Veluw, PhD (neuroimaging), and Mehdi Jorfi, PhD (bioengineering).

Susanne Janneke Van Veluw, PhD 

Principal Investigator, Department of Neurology 
Assistant Professor in Neurology, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Van Veluw’s lab is using neuroimaging to understand the relationship between small vessel disease (SVD) and dementia in the brain.

SVD is a condition that damages the arterioles (small branches of arteries that lead to the capillaries) and the capillaries themselves. This damage reduces or interrupts bloodflow to the affected organ—in this case, the brain.

She and her team study human brain tissue samples and use animal models to better understand SVD and the sequence of events that occur during disease progression.

They also observe patients with cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), one of the two most common forms of SVD in older individuals that often co-occurs with AD.  

Dr. Van Veluw explains that patients with severe CAA have an increased suffering from brain hemorrhages (a type of stroke that occurs when an artery bursts in the brain, which are often fatal.

Even in the absence of these catastrophic hemorrhages, numerous small, silent hemorrhagic and ischemic strokes (strokes occurring when the blood supply to the brain is blocked) can lead to cognitive impairment and dementia. 

“Currently there are no effective treatment strategies available to cure or slow down the progression of the disease. Our hope is to change that in the future,” she says. 

Mehdi Jorfi, PhD

Investigator, Department of Neurology and Center for Engineering in Medicine & Surgery 
Instructor in Neurology, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Jorfi and his team work at the intersection of neurobiology and bioengineering. They aim to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the brain through the invention of new devices and technologies.

His interaction with AD and dementia hit too close to home when he saw his own mother start to forget. “I was in shock. Never before had I been so close to dementia and AD,” recalls Dr. Jorfi.

“I also remember how devastating it was for my family when my grandmother was facing memory loss for the last seven years of her life.
No one ever discussed that what my grandmother was experiencing was dementia. Years later, I learned that it was a disorder of brain function and not just caused by aging.”

With the help of experts from different fields, Dr. Jorfi aims to use science and engineering to develop new tools to interrogate the pathology of AD using microphysiological systems that can closely emulate events in the brain, understand the relationship between AD and the peripheral immune cells to identify blood signatures and develop new strategies for early diagnosis and treatment.

Outside of the lab, he can often be found with a camera in nature. “I’ve always been inspired by nature and love to do wildlife photography in my free time.”

About the Mass General Research Institute
Research at Massachusetts General Hospital is interwoven through more than 30 different departments, centers and institutes. Our research includes fundamental, lab-based science; clinical trials to test new drugs, devices and diagnostic tools; and community and population-based research to improve health outcomes across populations and eliminate disparities in care.
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