Dr. Kevin J. O'Donovan, PhD Associate Professor Director - Life Science Program Chemistry & Life Science kevin.odonovan [at] westpoint.edu About Education Research & Publications Dr. O’Donovan is the Director of the Life Science Program in the Department of Chemistry and Life Science and teaches courses in neuroscience, biochemistry, cell biology, biology, and general chemistry. After graduating summa cum laude with BS in Biological Sciences and a minor in Chemistry from the University of North Texas in 1993, I earned my PhD in Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1999. There, using learning and memory paradigms in rodents, I studied how neuronal activity in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex induces a genetic program of DNA binding transcription factors, now known to be required for proper memory formation as well as being implicated in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. For that work I earned the Mette Strand Research Prize. For another project at Johns Hopkins that stemmed from a collaboration with Dr. Raj Ratan, we had the privilege to work and publish with the future Nobel Laureate Dr. Gregg Semenza on a project working on how oxidative stress impacts neuronal survival. Following graduate school, I was a Charles H. Revson Postdoctoral Fellow in the Laboratory of Molecular Neuro-Oncology at Rockefeller University in New York City. At Rockefeller, I studied the etiology of paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration (PCD), which is a devastating autoimmune attack on the nervous system that often begins with a tumor in other parts of the body. After a 5-year postdoctoral fellowship, I was promoted to Research Associate and remained in this position until 2009. Work on understanding disease progression has continued as evidenced by the recent publication in 2017 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation showing that there is a role for T cells in PCD. In 2009, I accepted a faculty position at the Burke Neurological Institute in White Plains, NY. While at Burke, I was a Goldsmith Fellow and helped develop an active research program focused on understanding axonal growth during embryonic development. This approach enabled us to leverage our knowledge of developmental axon growth towards studies of adult axonal regeneration. These studies, published in 2014 as a cover article in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, demonstrated that a constitutively active signaling molecule B-RAF promotes robust regenerative axonal growth of injured adult neurons in the intact animal. Postdoc Molecular Neuro-Oncology - Rockefeller University Ph.D. in Neuroscience - Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine B.S. in Biological Science - University of North Texas Current Research Currently, I have existing and nascent biomarker projects that involve collaborations with USMA scientists in CLS, Keller Army Community Hospital (KACH), Case Western Reserve University (Laboratory of Andrew Pieper) and AtlasXomics. Along with Dr. Cameron (KACH) and his team, we have developed longitudinal biomarker studies that encompass anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and concussion injuries that occur in USMA cadets. Current studies will address the unmet need for sensitive blood-based biomarkers of neurodegeneration in the brain after traumatic brain injury (TBI). The goal is to assess whether acetylated-tau (ac-tau) in the blood can serve as a novel biomarker for diagnosis, progression, and recovery related to mild TBI (mTBI) in cadets at the USMA. Currently, diagnosis of mTBI relies heavily on subjective assessments of history of the TBI and symptom reporting, which are highly variable. As a result, many cadets suffering from mTBI are likely undetected and not receiving appropriate care. A valid blood-based biomarker of brain damage after mTBI could provide an objective way to assess the magnitude of damage after injury that would accurately identify in a non-biased way cadets who need treatment. Selected Publications Hummel, S, Burpo, FJ, Hershfield, J, Kick, A, O’Donovan, KJ, Barnhill, J. A New Age of Bioterror: Anticipating Exploitation of Tunable Viral Agents. CTC Sentinel, April 2022, Vol 15, Issue 4. Cover Article.Armstrong, MJ, Milner, E, Bailey, D, Pincot, A, Brown, T, Nguyen, L, O’Donovan, KJ, Nguyen, C, Corrigan, T. Probing Microstructural Differences That Manifest in Human Blood After Taking Aspirin using TEVP Modeling and SPP. AIP Advances, 11, 115226 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0074608Corrigan, T, O’Malley, L, Bailey, D, Mosley, H, Okaikoi, J, Brown, T, Murray, S, Chang, W, Yang, M, Nguyen, L, Milner, E, O’Donovan, KJ, Armstrong, MJ. Changes in the Physical and Mechanical Properties of Human Blood Caused by Sustained Prophylactic use of Acetylsalicylic Acid (aspirin) – a Rheological Study. Open Journal of Fluid Dynamics, Vol. 11, No.4, 2021. doi:10.4236/ojfd.2021.114010Seidel G, Kotchman H, Milner E, O'Donovan KJ. The Underlying Effects of Celiac Disease and Subsequent Implications on Deployment in the United States Army. Mil Med. 2021 Apr 30:usab177. doi: 10.1093/milmed/usab177. Online ahead of print. PMID: 33928388.Stearns, J, O’Donovan, KJ, Eslinger, M. A student-led hearing on the use of HeLa cells in research. CourseSource, 2021,https://doi.org/10.24918/cs.2021.30.Wickiser, JK, O’Donovan, KJ, Washington, M, Hummel, S, Burpo, FJ. Engineered Pathogens and Unnatural Biological Weapons: The Future Threat of Synthetic Biology. CTC Sentinel, August 2020, Vol 13, Issue 8. Cover Article.