Team BPAN Stanford University

This year, Team BPAN riders in the Million Dollar Bike Ride are supporting groundbreaking BPAN research led by Dr. Juliet Knowles at Stanford University School of Medicine, with support from the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health. The research is carried out by a multidisciplinary team spanning many departments across Stanford, working together to accelerate BPAN and broader neuroscience research.

The team is advancing efforts to develop new treatments for BPAN through high-throughput drug screening, testing over 200,000 compounds in human cellular models. At the same time, researchers are using advanced omics technologies and biomarker studies, including EEGs, MRI, blood tests, and behavioral assessments, to track disease progression and identify biological signs of BPAN.

Supporting these efforts is a dedicated BPAN mouse colony at Stanford, which helps validate findings from the cellular models and provides key insights into the neurological and behavioral aspects of the disease.

Studying BPAN not only accelerates potential treatments for children with this rare disorder but also provides critical insights that inform broader neuroscience research, including epilepsy, autism, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s. By joining Team BPAN or donating, you directly support scientists working to bring hope and therapies to children and families affected by BPAN.

Every mile ridden and every dollar raised brings hope closer to reality. 💙