Research Highlights

Dr. John Swann, an established leader in the area of childhood epilepsy research and a Professor of Pediatrics and Neuroscience at the Baylor College of Medicine and a former President of the American Epilepsy Society, is the Scientific Director of the Cain Foundation laboratories.  He also serves as the Co-Director of the Jan and Dan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital.   

Under Dr. Swann’s leadership, the Cain Labs have focused on understanding the basic mechanisms that underlie persistent seizures and learning disabilities in children with intractable epilepsy.

In 2010, extensive preclinical cellular and animal studies by Cain lab researchers culminated in the identification of a rapamycin analog, everolimus, as a potential therapy against severe epilepsy due to brain malformations in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex. In a small FDA-approved clinical trial conducted at the Texas Children’s and Cincinnati Children’s Hospitals, it was demonstrated that most of the severely epileptic children treated with everolimus had significantly fewer seizures.  Encouraged by those positive results, a much larger international clinical trial is now underway. Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine are major sites for this trial.