Mir Ahamed Hossain, Ph.D.

Kennedy Krieger Institute
707 N. Broadway
Baltimore, MD 21205
Phone: (443) 923-2678
Email: hossain@kennedykrieger.org

Dr. Mir Ahamed Hossain is a research scientist and research program director for the Training Administration Research Program (TARP) at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. He is also an associate professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Biographical Sketch:

Dr. Hossain pursued his undergraduate and graduate education in biochemistry with major in neuroscience at the University of Calcutta in India, where he obtained his doctoral degree in biochemistry in 1990. Dr. Hossain is a molecular/cellular biologist with considerable expertise in experimental neuroscience and neurotoxicity. He served as a research fellow in the university's Department of Biochemistry before coming to the United States in 1990 for post-doctoral fellowships -- first in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Colorado, and then in the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Department of Neurology at Kennedy Krieger Institute. In 1997, he joined the Kennedy Krieger Institute as a faculty member. He is also a research program director for the Training Administration Research Program (TARP) at the Kennedy Krieger Institute.

Dr. Hossain is a member of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the Society for Neuroscience and American Heart Association. In 1984 he was awarded the Junior Research Fellow Scholarship by the Indian Government’s Indian Council of Medical Research.

Research Summary:

A major cause of neurodevelopmental handicaps in children is hypoxic-ischemic brain injury from perinatal anoxia and insufficient cerebral blood flow, resulting in major deficits in cognitive, sensory and motor disabilities for which currently there is no promising therapy. Brain injury initiated by hypoxic-ischemic insult results from a complex of events in which excitotoxicity plays a critical role. Excitatory amino acid such as glutamic acid, acting as both a neurotoxin and excitatory neurotransmitter, contributes to the pathogenesis of many forms of acute and chronic neuronal injury including hypoxia-ischemia, status epilepticus, trauma and neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's and Parkinson's disease.

The focus of Dr. Hossain's laboratory is directed towards understanding the cellular signaling events and molecular mechanisms involved in neuronal cell fate determination.

His investigations concentrate on the neonatal animal and primary neuronal cell culture models using multidisciplinary approaches involving molecular cloning, gene specific knockout and knock-in techniques, transcriptional regulations of gene expression, intracellular signal transduction and protein biochemistry. His laboratory is the first to identify a novel neuronal protein "neuronal pentraxin 1" contributing to hypoxia-ischemia induced neuronal injury in neonatal brain. Dr. Hossain's lab also provides first evidence for enhanced neuronal injury/death due to loss of functional methyl-CpG-binding protein (Mecp2) gene reported to be associated Rett syndrome. His goals are to understand the fundamental causes of brain injury and human neurodegenerative diseases and their potential prevention. Dr. Hossain's research will help to identify novel molecular targets that could become the basis for developing broadly applicable neuroprotective strategies for the treatment of brain injury and potentially neurodegenerative diseases.

LINK: SciVal Experts Research Profile for Mir Ahamed Hossain