Find Faculty Members at MUSC.

Onder Albayram PhD

Provider Image

(843) 876-2217

albayram@musc.edu

68 President Street, Bioengineering Building, Charleston, SC 29403 Room Office: BEB414 Laboratory: BEB431

Faculty email addresses should not be used to seek medical advice or to make medical appointments. Please visit MyChart for medical appointments or to contact your provider.
Rank
  • Associate Professor
College
  • College of Medicine
Department
  • Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Academic Focus
  • Neuroimmune and Cerebrovascular Integration in Brain Resilience, Aging, and Neurodegeneration
  • Brain Border Biology, Lymphatic Clearance, and Neuroimmune Resilience in Aging and Neurodegeneration
Faculty email addresses should not be used to seek medical advice or to make medical appointments. Please visit MyChart for medical appointments or to contact your provider.

Locations

Office Location
street
room

Biography

Dr. Albayram is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Department of Neuroscience at the Medical University of South Carolina. His research training began as an undergraduate research fellow at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge, where he was introduced to rigorous molecular and genetic approaches to biological discovery. He earned his M.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences, with a focus on neuropharmacology, from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and completed his Ph.D. in Neurobiology at the Institute of Molecular Psychiatry at the University of Bonn in Germany. He subsequently pursued faculty level training in translational neuroscience at Harvard Medical School.

 

1. Neuroimmune and Cerebrovascular Integration in Brain Resilience, Aging, and Neurodegeneration.

 Our research program seeks to define how neuroimmune signaling and cerebrovascular dynamics converge to shape synaptic integrity, circuit stability, and brain resilience across the lifespan. We investigate how the brain responds to neurological stress and why adaptive recovery in some contexts gives way to persistent vulnerability and neurodegenerative change in others. By integrating neuroimmune, vascular, and metabolic biology, our work focuses on convergent mechanisms that govern neural repair, cerebrovascular integrity, and long term functional resilience, with growing emphasis on the metabolic and lipid interfaces that influence neurovascular adaptation. To address these questions, we combine mechanistically driven experimental systems with human centered investigation using advanced spatial and single cell technologies, including Imaging Mass Cytometry, spatial transcriptomics, single nucleus sequencing, and multiomic profiling across complementary in vivo, in vitro, and human relevant platforms. Through this integrative framework, our goal is to identify biologically grounded mechanisms that preserve brain resilience and reveal new therapeutic opportunities across injury, aging, and neurodegeneration.

 

2. Brain Border Biology, Lymphatic Clearance, and Neuroimmune Resilience in Aging and Neurodegeneration.

 Our research program investigates how meningeal lymphatic networks and deep cervical drainage pathways function as an integrated brain border system governing tissue clearance, immune surveillance, and long term brain resilience. We seek to define how lymphatic vascular interfaces shape communication between the brain and peripheral immune system, and how disruption of these pathways contributes to impaired clearance, altered neuroimmune balance, and vulnerability to neurological decline across aging and neurodegenerative conditions. Leveraging a uniquely translational framework that integrates human biospecimens, intact tissue analysis, advanced neuroimaging, and mechanistic experimental models, our work combines high dimensional spatial technologies including Imaging Mass Cytometry, spatial transcriptomics, quantitative anatomical mapping, and molecular profiling to resolve how meningeal lymphatic networks interact with vascular, perivascular, and immune compartments. By establishing a multidimensional understanding of brain border biology and cervical drainage, our goal is to define this emerging system as a fundamental regulator of brain resilience and to uncover new opportunities for preserving clearance function and neuroimmune homeostasis in disease.

 

Selected Publications