Lauren Jantzie, PhD

Primary Academic Title

Associate Professor of Pediatrics

Background

Additional Academic Titles

Associate Professor of Neurology, Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery

Contact for Research Inquiries

600 N. Wolfe Street
CMSC Building, 6-104A
Baltimore, MD 21287

Research Interests

cerebral hypoxia-ischemia, chorioamnionitis, neuroinflammation, pediatric traumatic brain injury, perinatal brain injury, posthemorrhagic hydrocephalus

Lab Website

Jantzie Lab

• Dr. Jantzie, associate professor, received her Ph.D. in Neurochemistry from the University of Alberta in 2008. In 2013 she completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Neurology at Boston Children's Hospital & Harvard Medical School and became faculty at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Jantzie then joined the faculty Departments of Pediatrics (Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine) and Neurology at Johns Hopkins University and the Kennedy Krieger Institute in January 2019. Her lab investigates the pathophysiology of encephalopathy of prematurity, and pediatric brain injury common to infants and toddlers. Dr. Jantzie is dedicated to understanding disease processes in the developing brain as a means to identifying new therapeutic strategies and treatment targets for perinatal brain injury. Her lab studies neural substrates of cognition and executive function, inhibitory circuit formation, the role of an abnormal intrauterine environment on brain development, mechanisms of neurorepair and microglial activation and polarization. Using a diverse array of clinically relevant techniques such as MRI, cognitive assessment, and biomarker discovery, combined with traditional molecular and cellular biology, the Jantzie lab is on the front lines of translational pediatric neuroscience.?

Research Summary

Lauren Jantzie’s research program serves a medically disadvantaged patient population that includes infants and children with early brain injury living in metro, rural and economically depressed communities. Specifically, she has made exceptional contributions to the understanding of the pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of perinatal central nervous system insults that result in cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus, pain, neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders. The goal of Dr. Jantzie’s laboratory is to identify novel drug targets, agents, biologics and cell-based therapeutics to facilitate neurological recovery and repair of the injured developing brain. In support of this goal, her lab conducts unique translational mechanistic investigations and performs novel proof-of-concept studies in multiple, sophisticated models of perinatal brain injury. Her research platform has a diverse, expansive and highly clinically relevant experimental repertoire spanning high-resolution neuroimaging, touchscreen cognitive testing, and biomarker detection and identification. Through these interfaces, she is able to connect her research program to clinical practice. 

Dr. Jantzie is currently the PI of R01 on placental-brain inflammatory signaling, a Department of Defense (DoD) CDMRP grant on nonsurgical treatments of hydrocephalus (partner PI with Shenandoah Robinson in pediatric neurosurgery) and a multiyear research grant from the Cerebral Palsy Research Alliance Foundation (with Drs. Robinson and Northington). She also holds an R21 with Dr. Northington and is co-investigator on a clinical trial investigating darbepoietin use in preterm infants. Her clinical research collaborations also span biobehavioral, imaging and fluid biomarker identification with Raul Chavez-Valdez, Joanna Burton, Gwendolyn Gerner, Alec Hoon and Eric Chin. Dr. Jantzie is a member of two study sections at the NIH, including F0A1 for Brain Disorders and Related Neurosciences, and is an ad hoc grant reviewer for the DoD. Dr. Jantzie serves as a member of the planning and scientific expert committee for the Hydrocephalus Association, is on the Society for Pediatric Research Student Research and House Officer Awards Selection Committee, is an associate editor for Frontiers for Young Minds and is on the editorial board for Experimental Neurology (Neurological Disorders: Genetics and Pediatric Neurology). Dr. Jantzie published 42 peer-reviewed manuscripts, including 12 in which her trainees were lead authors.

Honors

• Faculty Research Excellence Award, Top Junior Faculty Award, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, 1/1/18
• Faculty Research Award, Department of Pediatrics, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, 1/1/18
• Young Investigator Award, Western Society for Pediatric Research, 1/1/16
• Governor General's Gold Medal Nominee, 1/1/08

Memberships

• Society for Neuroscience (SfN)
• American Heart Association (AHA)
• Western Society for Pediatric Research (WSPR)
• Society for Pediatric Research (SPR)
• American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET)
• American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine (AACPDM)