Improving brain energetics to prevent seizure generation with Associate Professor Karin Borges

Associate Professor Borges obtained her PhD in Neuroscience in 1995 at the University of Heidelberg. After extensive post-doctoral training at Emory University, she obtained independent teaching and research positions at Texas Tech University and since 2009 at the University of Queensland (UQ). Since 2005, her work has largely focused on dietary treatments for epilepsy and other neurological disorders. After discovering that triheptanoin, a high caloric special oil, prevented seizures in preclinical models, she led 3 clinical trials in Australia to investigate feasibility of using triheptanoin in children and adults with treatment-resistant epilepsy. Triheptanoin is now approved as a drug for inborn errors for fatty acid metabolism. A/Prof Borges lab also demonstrated that medium chain triglycerides (MCT) can reduce seizures in preclinical models. MCTs can be used safely by people with epilepsy and there is now evidence that they are efficacious in reducing seizures. Since 2024, A/Prof Borges is an editor for Epilepsy Currents. In her talk she will review the biochemistry behind triheptanoin and MCTs providing auxiliary fuels to the brain. She will also showcase her lab’s current research to find ways to improve glucose transport into brain cells to prevent seizure generation.