In July, Dr. Buckley received an R21 from the NIH/NHLBI through their “Bold New Bioengineering Methods and Approaches for Heart, Lung, Blood, and Sleep Disorders and Diseases” funding opportunity.  Her proposal, entitled “Microvascular cerebral blood flow measured with diffuse correlation spectroscopy in children with sickle cell disease”, will assess the feasibility of a new, low-cost, non-invasive technology known as diffuse correlation spectroscopy, to quantify blood flow in the brain of sickle cell patients through a complementary set of experiments in model systems, mice with sickle cell disease, and human patients.  The long-term goal of our research is to use diffuse correlation spectroscopy for longitudinal evaluation of blood flow in children with sickle cell disease in order to reduce the incidence of stroke, to guide therapies, and to ultimately improve outcomes.  Dr. Buckley’s collaborators on this project include Dr. Wilbur Lam (Emory/GT, BME) and Dr. David Archer (Emory, Pediatrics).