Dr. Daniel Cook, an instructor in anesthesiology, is the recipient of a Mentored Research Training Grant (MRTG) from the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER) for his project, “"How local anesthetics disrupt intracellular calcium stores and the impact on synaptic function and neurotoxicity."
The two-year MRTG grant provides support for early-career training of anesthesiologist-scientists to achieve independence as scientific investigators.
Dr. Cook’s research aims to better understand the molecular mechanisms that make local anesthetics toxic at high doses to enable the rational design of safer anesthetics. He is mentored by Dr. Timothy Ryan, a professor of biochemistry at Weill Cornell Medicine and senior fellow of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and co-mentored by Dr. Hugh C. Hemmings, Jr. Dr. Hemmings is the Senior Associate Dean for Research at Weill Cornell Medicine and the Joseph F. Artusio, Jr. Professor and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology
“I am thrilled and honored to be selected for the award,” said Dr. Cook, who is also a Van Poznak Anesthesiology Research Scholar. “My research mentors are experts in neuropharmacology, biophysics, and optical microscopy, and training in these fields will be essential to achieve my goal of improving patient care by better understanding anesthetic neurotoxicity.”