Maxim Cheeran, MVSc, PhD

Assistant Professor
Departments of Medicine & Veterinary Population Medicine

Immune responses to infections of the central nervous system are intended to both confer protection from invading pathogens and to promote reparative processes. This is achieved through a tightly regulated cellular response that is biased towards preserving tissue integrity. Our laboratory investigates the regulation of neuroimmune responses to viral infections and studies the interactions of neural stem cells with the inflammatory milieu, which play a critical role in inflammation-induced repair. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop novel therapeutic modalities for the long-term neurological sequelae associated with many viral encephalitides.

Selected publications:

Cheeran MC-J, Hu S, Ni HT, Sheng WS, Peterson PK, Lokensgard JR. Neural stem cell susceptibility to human cytomegalovirus diverges along distinct differentiation pathways. J Neurosci Res. 2005; 86(6)839-850.

Hu S, Cheeran MC-J, Sheng WS, Ni HT, Lokensgard JR, and Peterson PK. Cocaine alters proliferation, migration, and differentiation of human fetal brain-derived neural precursor cells. J Pharmacol Exp Ther. 2006: 318(3)1280-1286.

Cheeran MC-J, Hu S, Palmquist JM, Gekker G, Lokensgard JR. Dysregulated interferon-gamma responses during lethal cytomegalovirus brain infection of IL-10 deficient mice. Virus Res. 2007; 130(1-2)96-102.

Other links:

http://www.virology.umn.edu/virology/Investigators/cheeran.html
http://www.med.umn.edu/idim/faculty/resfac/cheeran.html