Dr. Marion Buckwalter's laboratory's goal is to improve how people recover after a stroke. They use basic research to understand the cells, proteins, and genes that lead to successful recovery of function, and also how complications develop that impact quality of life after stroke. Ongoing projects are focused on understanding how inflammatory responses are regulated after a stroke and how to make recovery faster and better after stroke. With their collaborator Dr. Longo, they have discovered a new drug that improves the speed and degree of recovery when mice are given the drug beginning three days after stroke. Developing it in animals to a point where it can be tried in people is a top priority. In terms of inflammation, they study how cells in the brain called astrocytes influence swelling and tissue cleanup after a stroke, and how similar cells in the lung influence stroke-induced immune insufficiency, which is a primary cause of pneumonias in stroke patients.