The Baromedical Research Foundation

Research Team

The Clinical Research Team is in charge of putting various pieces of our clinical research ‘jigsaw’ together. The team includes an epidemiologist and a biostatistician respectively, who along with the clinical trial coordinator organizes and correlates research design in a scientifically coherent manner.

Principal Biostatistician

James HusseyJames Hussey, PhD
Research Associate Professor
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC
USA

Dr. Hussey received graduate and doctoral level training in statistics from Virginia Tech University. He has since held a variety of positions including corporate statistician, teaching consultant and assistant professor of biostatistics. Currently, Dr. Hussey holds the position of research associate professor in the department of biostatistics at the University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health and is a NIH & CDC funded researcher.

On behalf of the Foundation, Dr. Hussey serves Project HORTIS as its principal biostatistician. He developed the randomization codes, supervises the research coordinator and will feature as a contributing author on all of the resulting HORTIS generated publications.

Principal Epidemiologist

Mike BennettMike Bennett, MBBS, DA, FFARCSI, FANZCA, MM (CLIN EPI), DIP DHM
Medical Director
Department of Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine Prince of Wales Hospital Sydney, Australia

Dr. Bennett serves as Medical Director, Department of Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine and has a senior staff specialist appointment with the Anesthesia Department at Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, Australia. Mike is extensively published on all things diving medicine. Additionally, Mike developed skills in the fields of Epidemiology and Biostatistics by obtaining a Master of Medicine in Clinical Epidemiology from Sydney University. He has been teaching statistics and clinical trial methodology on the FANZCA Primary Course at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital for the past three years.

More recently, Mike has authored several Cochrane Library reviews on ‘accepted’ and experimental uses of hyperbaric oxygen therapy. One of Mike’s particularly valuable contributions to the advancement of undersea and hyperbaric medicine is the development of a website repository of controlled trials (http:/hboevidence.com/). Mike’s work is recognized and appreciated internationally, and he was, quite fittingly, the recipient of the 2001 Albert R. Behnke Award by the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society.

Principal Neuro-Oncologist

Kiyotaka KohshiKiyotaka Kohshi, MD, PhD

Dr. Kiyotaka Kohshi underwent both his medical school and surgery residency training at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, in Kitakyushu, Japan. Dr. Kohshi then completed a neurosurgery residency at Kyusho Rosai Hospital. He then returned to the University of Occupational and Environmental Health School of Medicine, where he served as assistant professor, department of neurosurgery and the division of Hyperbaric Medicine, from 1987 to 2008. Dr. Kohshi is board certified in neurosurgery (1990) and hyperbaric medicine (2000). He was boarded by the Japan Stroke Society in 2004.

Dr. Kohshi’s research interests include neuro-oncology, stroke and central nervous system decompression illness. His studies of hyperbaric oxygen as a radiation sensitizer in the treatment of glioblastomas represents a modern and unique perspective on earlier hyperbaric radiation sensitization work. It served as a stimulus for the Baromedical Research Foundation to undertake its current study of squamous cell carcinoma radiation sensitization.

Senior Basic Scientist

Wende Reenstra Buras M.D, PhDWende Reenstra Buras M.D, PhD
Director of Basic Science Research
Division of Emergency Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts
USA

Dr. Wende Reenstra Buras received training in medical sciences at the Boston University School of Medicine where she was awarded Master’s and doctoral degrees in Pathology and an MD degree. Wende is involved in formal teaching of medical students at Harvard Medical School through participation as a lecturer for the fourth year elective rotation in emergency medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and also as a preceptor for the Introduction to Clinical Medicine course.

Dr. Buras is the Director of Basic Sciences Research as well as Director of Faculty Development at BIDMC. She has acted as the PI and co-PI on several NIH funded research projects and is a published author on the various effects of hyperbaric medicine at the sub-cellular level. The major focus of Dr. Buras’s research is in understanding the role of oxygen in regulating host responses to the disease states of sepsis, ischemia/reperfusion injury (as in myocardial injury/acute peripheral ischemia) and dysfunctional wound healing.