Taura L. Barr

Taura L. Barr Ph.D., RN, FAHA is Chief Science Officer at Valtari Bio Inc. and Associate Professor of Nursing at Ohio State University. Prior to Valtari Bio, Dr. Barr was an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing and Emergency Medicine at West Virginia University. She received her BSN and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 2004 and 2009 respectively. She received an NINR Graduate Partnership Program Training Grant for her predoctoral studies, where she developed her dissertation study under the mentorship of Dr.’s Steven Warach, NINDS and Andrew Singleton, NIA. Following the completion of her doctoral studies, she became a post-doctoral fellow in the intramural NINR training program and subsequently a Nurse Specialist where she led a post-deployment traumatic brain injury study in active duty service members.

She has received over $5 million in grant funding to support her research and has over 40 publications in peer reviewed journals, one issued patent, and multiple patent filings under review.

Dr. Barr recently served two years as the Vice Chair of the AHA’s Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing and was inducted as a Fellow into the AHA for her scientific and professional accomplishments.

Her program of research is centered on developing innovative therapeutic strategies and interventions to provide stroke and brain injury patients every possible chance to reach their full recovery potential.

Dr. Barr’s training has spanned from basic, preclinical models of disease mechanism to qualitative research methods to understand the human response to neurological disease and the implications for clinical practice. Her team is involved in innovative interdisciplinary partnerships between academia, government, and industry partners, aimed at characterizing how individual variation (genes, environment, and immunity) plays a role in recovery from brain injury (stroke and traumatic brain injury). Dr. Barr’s goal is to create a new model for treating brain injury: A patient-centered, integrative, holistic approach to healthcare, guided by patient-specific needs on a continuum.