# BLRD Research Career Scientist Award Application

> **NIH VA IK6** · JOHN D DINGELL VA MEDICAL CENTER · 2024 · —

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Current research activities in the laboratory of the Nominee concentrate on repetitive mild traumatic brain injury
rmTBI), Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses (GWVI), and substance abuse disorders (SUD). Each of these conditions
has in common damage to the brain. These conditions can also interact and serve as a co-morbid condition for
the others. These illnesses are over-represented in Veterans and represent serious health concerns for them
and their families. There are no effective therapies for rmTBI, GWVI and SUD. The overarching goal of this
research program is to achieve a better mechanistic understanding of rmTBI, GWVI and SUD so that
evidence-based therapies can be developed which will restore and return brain function in Veterans with these
disorders. rmTBI is a complex and chronic condition that has remained untouched by therapeutic interventions.
Despite numerous treatment successes in animal models, all clinical trials of TBI therapies in humans have
failed to date. This situation can be attributed to inappropriate animal models, at least in part. This project will
use a new mouse model of rmTBI that closely mimics the human condition insofar as symptoms and
pathologies in brain develop very slowly. Treatments directed at arresting increased glial reactivity will be
started after head impacts have been completed in order to maintain a translational approach. GWVI is another
chronic condition in Veterans of the Gulf War and this condition is characterized by three main symptom
clusters- gastrointestinal disorders (like IBD), chronic fatigue, and anxiety/PTSD-like conditions. Perhaps the
largest obstacle to achieving better treatments for GWVI is the fact that the toxins to which military personnel
were exposed are not known (dose, length of exposure, combinations). This project recognizes that all three of
the major symptoms of GWVI can be traced one-by-one to an altered gut microbiome. It also recognizes that
any toxins to which military personnel were exposed have been eliminated from their bodies soon after they
redeployed home. Therefore, we hypothesize that lifestyle risk factors, common among Veterans (e.g., obesity,
smoking, alcohol abuse), all of which can also disrupt the gut microbiome, interact with these exposures to
accentuate and prolong symptom expression. Research on this project will therefore target the gut with
therapies intended to correct the gut microbiome disruption that results from GWVI-lifestyle interactions (e.g.,
probiotics, short chain fatty acids, microbiota-accessible carbohydrate and/or low-fat diets). A second phase of
this project will develop a humanized mouse model of GWVI by transferring the diseased gut microbiome from
Veteran donors into mice and examining the mice for symptoms of the human disorder. This project bypasses
the uncertainly regarding toxin exposure in GWVI and will incorporate an important complicating factor in this
disorder- human GWVI shows much more symptom vari...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10797328
- **Project number:** 1IK6BX006460-01
- **Recipient organization:** JOHN D DINGELL VA MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Donald M Kuhn
- **Activity code:** IK6 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-10-01 → 2024-05-20

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10797328

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10797328, BLRD Research Career Scientist Award Application (1IK6BX006460-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10797328. Licensed CC0.

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