Dr. Kathleen Schmainda Receives Perfect Score on NCI MPI R01 to Establish a Consensus DSC-MRI Protocol

Kathleen M. Schmainda, PhD, professor of biophysics – in collaboration with Jerrold L. Boxerman, MD, from Brown University; Christopher Chad Quarles, PhD (contact PI), from Barrow Neurological Institute; and Leland Hu, MD, from Mayo Clinic – received a perfect score of 1.0 on a new multi-principal investigator R01 grant application titled “Establishing the Clinical Utility of a Consensus DSC-MRI Protocol” from the National Cancer Institute, resulting in a five-year, $3.5 million grant.

This multi-institutional team previously published a national consensus (Boxerman J et al. Neuro Oncol, 2020; 22(9):1262) regarding how to collect dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC)-MRI data in patients with brain tumors. This project represents the next step to developing a consensus regarding the post-processing of DSC-MRI data. The goal is to use data to establish a national consensus and then, with this consensus, set references regarding the evaluation of brain tumors and their treatments to shift brain tumor treatment management algorithms.

Dr. Schmainda is joined by an expert team of co-investigators at MCW including Jennifer Connelly, MD, associate professor of neurology; Dylan Coss, MD, assistant professor of pathology; Christopher Kleefisch, MD, assistant professor of radiology; and Max Krucoff, MD, assistant professor of neurosurgery. Foundational to this effort is collaborator Wade Mueller, MD, professor of neurosurgery and the members of Dr. Schmainda’s lab, which include Mona Al-Gizawiy, PhD; Melissa Prah, BS; and Cathy Marszalkowski in the Department of Biophysics, and Jaimy Pettit, BS, in the Department of Neurology.