Thomas Kent

Education and Training

• University of Kansas, BA, 1976
• University of Kansas Medical Center, MD, 1979

Research Interests

• Neurologist and clinician scientist with a basic, translational and clinical research program, focused mostly on stroke and other brain injuries. The laboratory utilizes a variety of cell free, tissue culture and in-vivo techniques to design and characterize a series of carbon nanomaterials that possess the ability to act as catalytic antioxidants as well as support key mitochondrial functions. This NIH-supported research is in collaboration with synthetic nano-chemists at Rice University (Tour Lab) and biochemists at University of Texas Health Science Center Houston (Tsai Lab). The group is testing a variety of engineered modifications of these versatile, non-toxic materials to address specific cell injury and death mechanisms including ferroptosis and interruption in electron transport and oxidative phosphorylation. The laboratory also co-directs along with Pitchaiah Mandava, MD, PhD, MSEE (Baylor College of Medicine), the Analytical SoftWare and Engineering Research (ANSWER) Laboratory, to develop novel analytical approaches using Engineering principles of quantifying uncertainty, to analyze complex pre-clinical and clinical trial data in order to identify promising therapies at early stages. Clinical research is supported by a State of Texas initiative, Lone Star Stroke, in which methods are under study to extend state of the art stroke care using telemedicine and other technologies to remote areas of Texas, where stroke burden is high and is a longstanding collaboration with Jane Anderson, PHD, APN (Baylor College of Medicine). A major interest of ours is the role of diabetes in worsening outcome from stroke, a condition that affects minority and rural Texans disproportionally. With a range of research from molecular interactions to whole animal and clinical studies, the work in this lab is deeply translational, leveraging the group’s clinical training and experience to insure that conclusions have direct relevance to the disease state, with the ultimate goal of facilitating the identification of new therapies for these major contributors to disability and mortality.