Caroline Guglielmetti
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Biomedical Engineering·Early-career
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease in which the immune system attacks the brain and spinal cord. It strips away myelin, the fatty insulation around nerve fibers, and damages the nerves themselves.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Neuroscience
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
multiple sclerosis
remyelination
demyelination
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Nov 2026
What they work on
- Image lactate metabolism and myelin content during lesion formation and spontaneous repair in two MS mouse models, using hyperpolarized [1-13C]lactate MRI and myelin-sensitive UTE-MT imaging.
- Test whether hyperpolarized lactate and UTE-MT signals can serve as biomarkers of response to a remyelinating therapy, confirming results with enzyme activity measurements and myelin histology.
- Evaluate the PET tracers [18F]F-AraG, which marks activated T cells, and [18F]FFAA, which tracks glutamate reuptake by the astrocyte transporter EAAT2, during MS-like disease progression in mice.
- Develop hyperpolarized [2-13C]pyruvate MRI to detect pro-inflammatory innate immune cells and measure real-time brain glutamate production, then use combined PET and MRI to monitor responses to therapy.
More about the research
Doctors cannot yet watch these processes well without surgery or biopsy. This makes it hard to follow the disease or to tell whether a treatment is working. Both projects develop and test new non-invasive imaging methods in mouse models of MS. The methods combine positron emission tomography (PET), which tracks radioactive tracer molecules, with metabolic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Together they aim to see repair of myelin, immune activity and brain chemistry in living animals.
Why it matters
These imaging methods are designed to be clinically translatable. They could give doctors non-invasive ways to diagnose MS, track myelin repair and inflammation, and judge whether a therapy is working. They may also help define the best time to treat in order to speed repair and prevent disability, and help test new remyelinating drugs.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Negar Omidvari
University of California-Davis, CA·Biomedical Engineering
Develop and validate a kinetic model of the T-cell–targeting tracer 18F-AraG across organs and tissue types, using dynamic total-body PET scans for more accurate measurement than standard static images.
Brian D. Ross
University of Michigan, MI·Biomedical Engineering
Develop a multiparametric MRI signature of bone marrow disease in myelofibrosis mouse models by combining Dixon fat-fraction (PDFF), diffusion-weighted, and magnetization transfer imaging, which track marrow fat, cell density, and scar tissue.
Nian Wang
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Biomedical Engineering
Measure whole-brain myelin loss, iron imbalance and axon damage over time in cuprizone-treated Thy-1 YFP-16 mice, using quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) and diffusion MRI models (DTI, NODDI, DKI).
The school
Washington University in St Louis: 97 labs on PI Pages, $1.2B a year on research, 365 research doctorates a year.
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