The StrokeNet Cilostazol for Prevention of Recurrent Stroke (CLARITY) trial was approved for funding in August 2025. It is led by Marteen Lansberg, MD, PhD, (Stanford), Kevin Sheth, MD, (Yale), and Adam de Havenon, MD (Yale). CLARITY will recruit about 2,000 patients to assess whether cilostazol, added to standard-of-care treatment, reduces ischemic stroke, myocardial infarction, and vascular death.
SPIRIT StrokeNet Conference
The SPIRIT StrokeNet Conference was held on Friday, September 5, 2025, at Madison Beach Hotel in Madison, Conn. Thank you to speakers, panelists, planners, moderators and attendees! More than 60 colleagues gathered – plus 10-20 who joined remotely – for an exciting meeting! The meeting co-chairs were Kevin Sheth, MD, (Yale), and Karen Furie, MD, (Brown). The speakers and panelists, in particular, deserve our gratitude for developing presentations and agreeing to talk about their work and experiences. We were also lucky to have a beautiful day at Long Island Sound!
Overview of events, included:
Trainees were given the chance to discuss their career plans 1-on-1 with mentors.
Pooja Khatri, MD, (Yale), StrokeNet National Coordinating Center co-PI and Yale Neurology chair, answered questions about her research experiences, and her ideas on the future of StrokeNet and stroke research.
Randy Marshall, MD, (Columbia), spoke about the upcoming StrokeNet 2026 Recovery Conference.
Participants took part in small group discussions about areas in stroke research that are coming down the pike.
Three investigators presented ongoing research projects:
Timothy White, MD, (Northwell), “The Potential for Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation to Augment Cerebral Blood Flow and Improve Outcomes in Disorders of Cerebral Perfusion”
Ana-Lucia Garcia Guarniz, MD, (Brown), “Gut-brain Metabolites as Risk Predictors of Post-stroke Cognitive Impairment (PSCI)”
Richa Sharma, MD, PhD, (Yale), “POLARIS: An AI-CoPilot for Secondary Prevention.”
Based on her work, Rachel Forman, MD (Yale), organized and moderated a panel, “Building Trust and Equity in Clinical Research: Partnering with Patients and Communities.“ Speakers included:
Nitza Fuentes - Member of Stroke Patient and Family Advisory Council
Tom Lenart - Member of PROSPER Community Advisory Board
Daniel Sarpong, PhD - Exec. Dir., Yale Office of Health Equity Research.
Neurointerventionist debates were held on two hot topics:
Management of ICAD (Intracranial Atherosclerotic Disease)
Pro - Timothy G. White, MD (Northwell)
Con - Charles Matouk, MD (Yale)
MeVO (Medium Vessel Occlusion)
Pro - Tapan Mehta, MD (Hartford)
Con - Mahesh V. Jayaraman, MD (Brown).
(Left to right: Charles Wira, MD, Yale, and Mirriam Mananah, postgraduate associate, Yale)
(Shufan Huo, MD, PhD, Yale, StrokeNet fellow)
(Timothy G. White, MD, Northwell)
(Left to right: Community member panelists, Tom Lenart, Daniel Sarpong, PhD, Yale, and Nitza Fuentes, with moderator Rachel Forman, MD, Yale)
(Top left: Presenting via Zoom, Ana-Lucia Garcia Guarniz, MD, Brown)
(Tapan Mehta, MD, Hartford)
(Mahesh V. Jayaraman, MD, Brown)
(Left to right: Karen Furie, MD, Brown, and Pooja Khatri, MD, Yale)
Announcements
STEP opens in Hartford: Hartford Hospital opened for STEP enrollment on June 30, 2025 (Site PIs Ajay Tunguturi, MD, and Tapan Mehta, MD; Coordinator Aditya Vajja).
Reminder: All SPIRIT members are invited to SPIRIT Trial Operations Committee Meetings. On Monday, October 20, and then on the third Monday of each month from 9 - 10 a.m., the SPIRIT Trial Operations Committee (TOC), which includes hub and stroke leaders, site PIs, research managers, coordinators, and others from Brown/Rhode Island Hospital, Hartford, Northwell, and Yale, meet to discuss StrokeNet and SPIRIT news, consent and enrollment counts and procedures, and trial start-up. Everyone in the SPIRIT RCC is welcome to attend and participate. Ask Ruth Arnold for more information.
Mark Your Calendars:
Grand Rounds NIH StrokeNet Basic Science
Thursday, October 30, 2025: 4 p.m. Presentation: Thrombolysis in Populations at Particular Risk for Bleeding (anti-amyloid drugs, older age, etc)
Presenter: Steve Greenberg, MD, PhD (MGH) | MODERATOR: Cemal Sozener, MD (University of Michigan) Zoom link
NIH StrokeNet Professional Development Webinar
Monday, November 10, 2025: 4 p.m. Panel Discussion – Perspectives on the Current Research Climate
Panelists: Karen Johnston. MD (UVA), Clay Johnson, MD, (Harbor Health), Chris Lewandowski, MD (Henry Ford) | Moderator: Scott Janis, PhD (NINDS) Zoom link
The full schedule for other Fellow StrokeNet webinars, as well as webinar recordings, are posted on the StrokeNet website.
For Coordinators and Managers: Professional Development CRP Presentation Wednesday, October 22, 2025: 1:30 p.m. Presentation: eConsent Process and Best Practices
Presenters: Anthony Rogers, MBA and Iris Davis, MS (NCC/Univ. of Cincinnati) | Moderators: Heena Olalde, RN, MSN & Kinga Aitken, MPH, CCRP Zoom link
Coordinators and Managers: The next quarterly 2025 SPIRIT StrokeNet Coordinator/Manager meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, December 2, 2025 at 11 a.m.
Proposed topic - Retention strategies across trials and sites. Zoom link
SPIRIT Status in Cycle 2, Year 2 RPPR
The yearly Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) was due to NIH on October 1, 2025. In this report, SPIRIT documented its StrokeNet Year 2 activity since December 1, 2024 (Year 2 officially closes November 30, 2025). Points mentioned:
Collaboration across SPIRIT sites resulted in 20 publications with authors from at least two of the SPIRIT sites between December 2024 and September 2025.
The SPIRIT StrokeNet RCC had a strong presence at the International Stroke Conference (ISC) in February, 2025. There were about 90 presentations by SPIRIT attendees; 19 fellows and trainees took part in 32 sessions. In addition, Lauren Sansing, MD, (Yale), is the 2025-2026 ISC chair.
SPIRIT’s participation in StrokeNet trials remains robust. In Year 2, SPIRIT offered nine trials across five sites.
As of September 17, 2025, the SPIRIT RCC ranking was tied for seventh compared to other RCCs in overall trial subject enrollments (N=40) since December 1, 2024.
2025-2026 SPIRIT StrokeNet Fellow
Gets Started
The 2025-2026 SPIRIT StrokeNet Fellow, Shufan Huo, MD, PhD, (Yale), began work on her project, “Leveraging Multi-omic Approaches for Drug Repurposing in Cerebral Small Vessel Disease.” Huo will dissect the polygenic mechanisms of action in cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) by integrating a multiomic framework (genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data) to reveal key molecular targets and pathways to advance drug repurposing and development. In particular, she is hoping to identify the key proteins mediating the polygenic risk of CSVD that can be used as novel druggable targets, with extension to lacunar stroke and vascular dementia, the most detrimental manifestations of CSVD.
Aim 1: Use Mendelian Randomization (MR) analyses to repurpose known CSVD candidate drugs.
Aim 2: Integrate genomic and proteomic data to agnostically approach novel CSVD drug target discovery.
Aim 3: Explore identified drug targets for lacunar stroke and vascular dementia (VCID).
PI & Coordinator Spotlight:
PI Dr. Rohan Arora and Team
North Shore University Hospital (NSUH) remains wide awake on its Sleep SMART path! With the leadership of site PI Rohan Arora, MD, and the hard work of the Clinical Research Coordinators.
NSUH has had one Sleep SMART enrollment and 10 Sleep SMART consents since the last newsletter in June, 2025. The last enrollment on October 8, 2025, made 44 Sleep SMART enrollments! That total, along with the 178 consents, is dedication. It also puts NSUH in seventh place for Sleep SMART enrollments relative to all the StrokeNet sites. This is an outstanding accomplishment to say the least. Bravo!
Clinical Trial Enrollment Updates,
as of October 13, 2025
Staten Island - 10 consented, 2 randomized (site closed)
Yale - 57 consented, 20 randomized
ASPIRE - (Consents = 50; Randomized = 30)
Hartford - 3 consented, 1 randomized
North Shore - 13 consented, 10 randomized
Rhode Island - 5 consented, 3 randomized (site closed)
Yale - 29 consented, 16 randomized
CAPTIVA - (Randomized = 55) and
CAPTIVA-MRI (Randomized = 5)
Hartford - 8
North Shore - 26; and CAPTIVA-MRI - 3
Rhode Island - 8
Yale - 13; and CAPTIVA-MRI - 2
STEP - (Consents = 0; Randomized = 0)
Hartford - 0 consented, 0 randomized
Rhode Island - 0 consented, 0 randomized
Yale - 0 consented, 0 randomized
SPIRIT RCC Total Enrollments by Sites,
June 12, 2025 - October 13, 2025, N=13
(since the last SPIRIT newsletter issue)
Team Shot – Yale Coordinators
The “Core” coordinator team at Yale New Haven Hospital. From left to right: Katie Meehl, Alice Lidman, Sam Namian, Victor Torres Lopez, Jackson Namian, Wini Dorlean, Yome Tawaldemedhen, Will Remillard, and Mike Kampp.
