Dr. David Y. Chung is a neurointensivist and physician-scientist focused on improving outcomes in survivors of ruptured brain aneurysms. He earned his BA in Chemistry from Williams College and an MD/PhD from Columbia University. After completing his residency in Neurology at Columbia-New York Presbyterian Hospital, he pursued a Fellowship in Neurocritical Care at Harvard-Mass General Brigham. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and an Attending Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital where he runs a lab in the MGH Neurovascular Research Unit. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles and has developed microscopy techniques for functional neuroimaging, optogenetic stimulation, and optical detection of blood flow changes in animal models and patients.

Please tell us your background, where you are from, schooling, etc.

I have a BA in Chemistry from Williams College and an MD/PhD from Columbia University. I completed a residency in Neurology at Columbia-New York Presbyterian Hospital. I pursued a Fellowship in Neurocritical Care at Harvard-Mass General Brigham. 

What led you to become involved with brain aneurysm research?

While taking care of patients in the ICU during my neurology residency, I was frustrated by the limited number of therapies that could be use to treat patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. I remember taking care of a young patient who looked well after their aneurysm surgery who went on to develop delayed strokes over the course of a week and then needed to go to a nursing home. I have hope that we can develop new therapies to prevent these kinds of poor outcomes.

In the simplest terms, what is the purpose of your project?

We want to determine if therapies intended to improve blood flow to the brain actually improve blood flow to the brain.

In the simplest terms, what do you hope will change through your research findings?

The standard of care is to increase blood pressure in patients who have neurological decline. There is no doubt that increasing blood pressure leads to improvement in some patients’ symptoms. However, many times it’s not clear if an increase blood pressure is helping and there is recent evidence that it can lead to worse outcomes. We believe the gap is that there is a significant difference between pressure and flow. There simply isn’t a good flow monitor that’s available to physicians. We hope to change that. In so doing, the new standard of care may be to optimize blood flow rather than pressure.

Why is the funding you are receiving through the Brain Aneurysm Foundation so important?

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Brain Aneurysm Foundation funding. It will enable us to collect additional data and to develop analysis approaches to determine the effect of ICU interventions on blood flow. It will enable us to apply for additional funding in the form of NIH grants. Finally, it means a great deal to our team that the Foundation sees value in the direction of the work. The funding will have an outsized impact on our project.