News and Media

We hope you joined us at the first World Coma Day on March 2021! Details on next year's here!

Gracious thanks to Mr. Gary Carmell for supporting our lab!

Gary Carmell created the Roneet Carmell Memorial Endowment Fund in memory of his beloved wife who passed away unexpectedly from cardiac arrest. The Akbari Lab is proud to continue our mission to improve treatments and care for cardiac arrest patients.
We are honored to celebrate her memory by continuing these pursuits in her name.

Scientists Partly Restore Activity in Dead-Pig Brains

The brain, supposedly, cannot long survive without blood, but scientists discover this process might play out over a much longer time frame, and perhaps isn't as inevitable or irreparable as commonly believed.

Photonics can change critical care neurology

Photonic devices have shown increasing potential to provide minimally invasive and noninvasive brain monitoring.

Protecting the brain after heart attack

Could reducing someone’s calorie intake before or immediately after a heart attack help protect their brain function?

Patient revived from coma when others lost hope

Despite test results and professional opinions stating otherwise, a patient was revived after he had been in a coma for six-and-a-half months.

March 21, 2025 - Congratulations to Sayed Sepehr Khatami, MD on his acceptance into a residency program at The Valley Health System in Las Vegas, NV! We are so proud and wish him the best in this next chapter.
May 2, 2023 - Congratulations to Sangwoo Han for successfully defending his PhD thesis, “Mechanisms and treatments for reperfusion injury of the brain during cardiac arrest and resuscitation”
March 22, 2021 - Join the Akbari Lab in attending the first World Coma Day! Register Here
October, 2019 - The Akbari Lab is proud to welcome recent addition, Sangwoo Han, MD/PhD candidate.
October, 2019 - The Akbari Lab and its recent work applying optical imaging to Alzheimer’s disease mentioned in feature article of Biophotonics section in Photonics Media (www.photonics.com). You can view the article here.
September, 2019 - The Akbari Lab has been awarded a second NIH supplement award to apply optical imaging devices towards Alzheimer's disease research, focusing on cerebral autoregulation.
August, 2019 - Congrats to Ansley Unterberger, recent member of our lab, for starting medical school at UCLA!
July, 2019 - The Akbari Lab has been awarded its first industry grant by Hamamatsu Photonics to apply a novel, non-invasive brain optical imaging device on Neuro-ICU patients. We are very excited to partner with Hamamatsu Photonics!
May 23, 2019 - The Akbari Lab gave a lecture at the Roneet Carmell Memorial Lecture on our cutting-edge research to help improve outcomes for resuscitation in cases of coma and cardiac arrest.
March 1, 2019 - Congrats to Matine Azadian for being accepted into Stanford's prestigious MD/PhD program! Congrats again Matine!!!
February 2, 2019 - The Akbari Lab gave a keynote talk at the SPIE Photonics West Conference at the clinical and translational symposium!
September 27, 2018 - The Akbari Lab gave an oral platform presentation at the Neurocritical Care Society annual meeting!
September 23, 2018 - The Akbari Lab gave an oral presentation as well as a poster presentation at the COSBID International Conference on Spreading Depolarizations. More about COSBID here!
August, 2018 - Akbari Lab awarded NIH NIA supplemental grant to develop optical imaging techniques for studying Alzheimer's disease models.
July 20, 2018 - The Akbari Lab gave a talk at the 40th International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society!
July 9-19, 2018 - The Akbari Lab hosted 26 high school students from across the USA as part of an annual summer research program!
February 21, 2018 - The Akbari Lab gave a talk at the Hamamatsu Mind Brain Conference in Hamamatsu, Japan!
December 15, 2017 - Super congrats to Matine Azadian, who received the 2017 International Junior Sanofi Institut Pasteur Award as a Future Leader in Science! This award comes with FULL funding towards PhD training along with a $120K award to the lab he decides to join for his PhD training. Matine's project is focused on the neuroprotective effects of caloric restriction in cardiac arrest. Congrats Matine!!! We are all so proud of you!
November 29, 2017 - Congrats to Dr. Rob Wilson and Christian Crouzet, their paper was accepted to Neurophotonics. Read it here!
November 13, 2017 - Congrats to Matine Azadian! Matine, Dr. Guilian Tian, and Dr. Akbari presented 2 posters at the American Heart Association (AHA) Resuscitation Science Symposium (ReSS) in Anaheim, CA.
October 11, 2017 - Akbari Lab gave 2 platform talks at the 15th Annual Neurocritical Care Society (NCS) meeting in Hawaii! Way to go!
September 10, 2017 - Dr. Akbari just gave a talk on medical and surgical management of MCA stroke at the NEIMS conference in Shenzhen, China!
August 15, 2017 - Akbari Lab just received a 3-year NIH grant!

Grants and Funding

NIH NINDS R01 (2022-2026; PI: Weiss): “Mitochondrial Zn2+ accumulation and the induction of ischemic neurodegeneration.” Role: Co-I
Hamamatsu Photonics - Transalational (1st in patients) study of a novel optical imaging device; (2019-2022, PI: Akbari): “Feasibility of Time-Resolved Spectroscopy (TRS) for Assessment of Patients in the Neuro-ICU” Role: Lead PI
Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute Pilot Grant (2021-2022; PI Akbari) “The role of ketones in protecting the brain and heart during ultra-short caloric restriction.” Role: Lead PI
NIH NIA R21 AG066000 (2020-2022), PI Bernard Choi: Multiscale optical characterization of cerebrovascular structure, function and oxygen utilization in a novel mouse model of sporadic Alzheimer's disease." Role: Co-I
Roneet Carmell Memorial Endowment Fund (2019 - Present) Role: PI
NIH NIA EB024793-S2 (2019-2020, NCE 2021): "High-Speed Optical Imaging of Cerebrovascular Resistance and Cerebral Autoregulation Dynamics in a New Sporadic Model of Alzheimer’s Disease." Role: PI
NIH NIBIB R21, EB024793 (2017-2020, NCE 2021): "Multimodal Optical Imaging of Hyperdynamic Cerebral Responses to Cardiac Arrest & Resuscitation." Role: PI
NIH NIA EB024793S1 (2018-2019, NCE 2020): "Longitudinal High-Speed Optical Imaging of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease." Role: PI
UCI ICTS Pilot Grant (via NIH CTSA UL1 TR001414; 2018-2019) "Mechanisms underlying a novel, highly prognostic EEG signal during cardiac arrest and resuscitation." Role: PI
NIH NINDS R21, NS096987 (2016-2018; PI: John Weiss): "Mitochondrial Zn2+ in ischemic neurodegeneration: In vivo tests of principle studies in a rat cardiac arrest model." Role: Co-I

News & Funding