Our recent work has found that cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), a fluid which envelops the brain and is important in maintaining brain health, actively flows through these channels and in turn can relay signals specifically into the skull marrow. In conditions like bacterial meningitis that affect the brain and spinal cord, bacteria can utilize this outflow of CSF through these skull channels to incite an immune response specifically in the skull marrow. Future work will look to determine how drugs that modulate the immune system and delivered into the CSF may benefit the treatment of this neuroinflammatory condition.

I am grateful to be working at MGH where I am surrounded by scientists and clinicians at the forefront of research fields like immunology, neuroscience and cardiovascular disease. The intellectual and scientific resources of this environment not only facilitate my research but allow me to learn directly from the leaders in these fields.

I was born in Iraq and immigrated to Nashville, TN with my family when I was 5. I did my undergraduate degree at Vanderbilt and my PhD at Emory University in Atlanta before moving to Boston with my wife a mere 6 weeks before the pandemic. Outside of the lab, I spend a lot of time playing soccer and watching my favorite soccer (Arsenal!) and NFL (Tennessee Titans!) teams. My favorite movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey and I recently read the sci-fi novel Dune before seeing the new film adaptation. On the weekends, my wife and I like to try new and different restaurants across the vibrant Boston culinary scene- our favorite cuisines being French, Greek and Italian.