Brian J Cummings, PhD
Associate Dean for Faculty Development (senate)
Professor & Vice Chair for Research
Departments of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation | Neurological Surgery
Anatomy & Neurobiology
2026 Gross Hall
845 Health Science Road
University of California – Irvine
Irvine CA 92697-1705
949-824-3254
cummings@uci.edu
Key Research Area
Neurotrauma, Traumatic Brain Injury, Concussion, Long-Term Effects of Repeat Mild Head Injury, Neural Stem Cells, Translational Neuroscience, Bioethics and FDA Regulation
Professional Bio
I have a long-standing interest in the underlying neurobiology of neurodegenerative diseases and neurotrauma, including extensive experience in Alzheimer’s disease, post-mortem tissue processing and quantification, spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury models, and in the translation of basic research to clinical applications. My early work helped demonstrate that both Aß plaques and neurofibrillary tangles were correlated to dementia severity in man, and that the method and differential sensitivity of the quantitative method used biased these assessments for or against the role of Aß. This body of work is still highly cited today. I am also interested in the development and interrelationship between common neuropathologies across aging, Alzheimer’s and neurotrauma. In the last decade, my research supported an IND filing for an FDA approved phase I trial of human neural stem cells in the myelination disorder, Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD); a phase I/II clinical trial for human neural stem cells in thoracic spinal cord injury (SCI) approved by SwissMedic in 2010 and Health Canada in 2013; and a phase I/II trial of human NSCs for cervical spinal cord injury in the US and Canada approved by the FDA in 2015. Over the years, my lab has specialized in animal models of aging, Alzheimer’s disease and neurotrauma, developing minimally invasive cell transplantation methods, methods for handling and transporting live human cells, optimizing the engraftment and long-term survival of human cells across a xenotransplantation barrier, understanding the interaction between immunosuppressants and stem cell fate, and quantifying human cell survival, fate, and migration in animal models using unbiased stereology. I am particularly interested in neuropathology and neuroregeneration; both at the cellular level, and from a broader behavioral perspective, as well as the interaction of human neural stem cells (hNSCs) in the normal, injured, and aged CNS niches and the link between neurotrauma and subsequent development of AD-pathology and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). As there is a link between neurotrauma and common neuropathology cascades, my lab is also studying how repeat mild traumatic brain injury/concussion can be assessed long-term in animal models, whether these deficits are exacerbated in the aged vs young brain, and the correlations between white matter atrophy, neuronal loss, and cognitive deficits. I have also lead the development of xenofree culture of human stem cells and growth of human ESC and iPSCs into 3D brain organoids using a modified bioreactor system. Further, mild injury to these brain organoids results in a recapitulation of AD neuropathology. My lab offers expertise in small animal survival surgeries, transplantation, confocal and EM microscopy, quantitative PCR and array analysis, stereological assessment of engraftment and neuropathology, and assessment of a wide range of animal behaviors. We have over a decade of experience culturing human neural stem cells, fetal derived cells, ES and iPS cells and have developed methods FAC sort these cells, track them via real time cell imaging and grow human ES and iPSCs cells in 3D cultures to generate brain organoids or “borganoids”. I also direct the Live-Cell Imaging and Stereology cores for the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Center.
Education
1987 B.S. University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, IL (Psychology)
1987 B.A. University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, IL (Philosophy)
1993 Ph.D. University of California, Irvine, CA (Psychobiology)