Koliatsos, Vassilis, M.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Professor, Department of Pathology, Division of Neuropathology
Professor, Department of Neurology

Main Office Address

Division of Neuropathology
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine 
558 Richard Star Ross Research Building
720 Rutland Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21205                                      

Office Telephone: 410-955-5633
Voice Mail: 410-502-5172
Fax: 410-955-9777

E-Mail: koliat@jhmi.edu

Education

Professional Interests

I am interested in the basic, translational, and clinical science of neural injury and repair. I have trained with Donald Price and Mahlon Delong in molecular and systems neurosciences and have been part of the group effort in the Hopkins Division of Neuropathology that has made breakthrough discoveries in neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. In my lab, I have been modeling neural injury for 25 years, both in simple models (axotomy) and in the context of neurodegenerative disease. In the clinic, I have been taking care of the cognitive and neuropsychiatric problems of patients with traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases for 14 years. Among my research contributions are the characterization of the retrograde responses of peripheral and central neurons to axotomy and also of transsynaptic injury in neocortex and the limbic system. My laboratory has determined the trophic response profiles and developed experimental trophic therapies for injured neurons in the PNS and CNS. I have also used neural stem cells in efforts at reconstituting simple circuits in the injured nervous system, beginning with motor circuits in the spinal cord. In the last three years, I have turned my attention to models of traumatic brain injury, including the development and characterization of a mouse model of blast injury to brain. My main priorities at the present time are the role of traumatic axonal injury in brain circuit disconnection (connectopathies) and in the development of chronic neurodegenerative diseases (tauopathies), as well as therapeutic strategies at preventing or repairing these difficult problems.

Selected Publications

Yan J, Welsh AM, Xu L, Johe K and Koliatsos VE: Large-scale survival, differentiation and structural integration of human neural stem cells grafted into the adult rat spinal cord. PLoS Medicine 4(2): 318-332, 2007.

Nasonkin I, Mahairaki V, Xu L, Hatfield G, Cummings B, Eberhart C, Ryugo DK and Koliatsos VE: Advanced differentiation of human embryonic stem cell-derived neural precursors grafted into the adult mammalian neostriatum. Stem Cells 27(10): 2414-26, 2009.

Mahairaki V, Lim SH, Christopherson GT, Xu L, Nasonkin I, Yu C, Mao HQ and Koliatsos VE: Human neural stem cell-nanofiber preparations promote axonal regeneration in vitro. Tissue Eng Part A 17(5-6): 855-63, 2011.

Burridge PW, Thompson S,  Millrod MA, Weinberg S, Yuan X, Peters A,  Mahairaki V, Koliatsos VE, Tung L, and Zambidis ET: A universal system for highly efficient cardiac differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells that eliminates interline variability. PLoS One 6(4): e18293, 2011

Koliatsos VE, Cernak I, Xu L, Song Y, Savonenko A, Crain B, Eberhart CG, Frangakis CE, Melnikova T, Kim H, Lee D: A mouse model of blast injury to brain: initial pathological, neuropathological and behavioral characterization. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol. 70(5):399-416, 2011.