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Carolina Ionete, MD, PhD

Carolina Ionete, MD, PhD, Director of Neuroimmunology and MS Center, Professor

Carolina Ionete, MD, PhD
Director of Neuroimmunology, and MS Center
Principal Investigator of Ionete Lab
Carolina.Ionete@umassmemorial.org

“I am passionate about providing our patients with an improved quality of life. By delivering restorative comprehensive care we are improving education and research with MS biomarker studies and clinical trials to develop improved treatment options.” 

Academic Appointment:
Carolina Ionete MD, PhD, is an international Professor of neurology partnering with UMass Chan Medical School, in Worcester, Massachusetts and Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, in Bucharest, Romania. Her dual professorship allows her to teach and collaborate with European research teams. 

Dr. Ionete is a graduate of the UMass Chan Medical School, Neuroimmunology fellowship program before joining the UMass Chan faculty team in 2007. Ionete, MD, completed her neurology residency training in Romania and the US at American Neurology at UNMC, Creighton University Medical Center, in Omaha, Nebraska, and  received her MD and PhD from the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, in Bucharest, Romania.  

Ionete Lab Research:
 - Clinical and translational research in neuroimmunology 
 - Maintain the UMass biorepository of healthy control samples for MS and other neurological diseases.
 - Study of stool microbiome changes in MS
 - Inflammasome activity in PMS and RMS
 - B cell and antibody repertoire in PMS and RMS
 - Biomarkers of MS disease activity and treatment response
 - Neurolupus, Neurosarcoidosis and Neuro HIV complications   - Active clinical trials
 
Ionete, MD, PhD, Clinical Expertise
 - Intrathecal baclofen pump
 - Botox for spasticity/headache
 - Treatment of MS and other autoimmune neurological diseases 
 - Treating neurological complications of HIV infections
 
Ionete, MD, PhD, Education Experience:
 - Dual professorship within United States and Romania
 - Chair, Education leadership for Department of Neurology - 
 - Chair, PAC
 - Advisor and Reviewer for:
      - NMSS, National Multiple Sclerosis Society,
      - CMSC, Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers,
      - ECTRIMS, European Committee for Treatment and 
        Research in MS
      - ACTRIMS, American Committee for Treatment and
        Research in MS 

 Active/Current Clinical Trials - Conquering Diseases - Search 

Carolina Ionete, MD, PhD, publications

Total: 15 results

  • Paramagnetic Rim Lesions are Highly Specific for Multiple Sclerosis in Real-World Data

    Monday, October 07, 2024
    Author(s): Christopher C Hemond,Sathish K Dundamadappa,Mugdha Deshpande,Jonggyu Baek,Robert H Brown,Carolina Ionete,Daniel S Reich
    Source: medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences
    CONCLUSIONS: PRL convey high specificity for MS and can aid in the diagnostic evaluation. Modest sensitivity limits their use as single diagnostic indicators. Including lesions with lower confidence ("possible" PRL) rapidly erodes specificity and should be interpreted with caution given the potential harms associated with misdiagnosis.

  • Targeted proteomics of cerebrospinal fluid in treatment naïve multiple sclerosis patients identifies immune biomarkers of clinical phenotypes

    Wednesday, September 18, 2024
    Author(s): Alexandra Rabin,Elisa Bello,Saurabh Kumar,Dalia Abou Zeki,Khashayar Afshari,Mugdha Deshpande,Nimmy Francis,Farnaz Khalighinejad,Raffaella Umeton,Irina Radu,Fatima Qutab,Danny Kwong,Mariana Kurban,Christopher Hemond,Jillian M Richmond,Carolina Ionete
    Source: Scientific reports
    Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory demyelinating disease with heterogeneous clinical presentations and variable long-term disability accumulation. There are currently no standard criteria to accurately predict disease outcomes. In this study we investigated the cross-sectional relationship between disease phenotype and immune-modulating cytokines and chemokines in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). We analyzed CSF from 20 DMT-naïve MS patients using Olink Proteomics' Target 96 Inflammation panel...

  • Emerging Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers of Disease Activity and Progression in Multiple Sclerosis

    Monday, March 11, 2024
    Author(s): Anne H Cross,Jeffrey M Gelfand,Simon Thebault,Jeffrey L Bennett,H Christian von Büdingen,Briana Cameron,Robert Carruthers,Keith Edwards,Robert Fallis,Rachel Gerstein,Paul S Giacomini,Benjamin Greenberg,David A Hafler,Carolina Ionete,Ulrike W Kaunzner,Lay Kodama,Christopher Lock,Erin E Longbrake,Bruno Musch,Gabriel Pardo,Fredrik Piehl,Martin S Weber,Steven Yuen,Tjalf Ziemssen,Gauruv Bose,Mark S Freedman,Veronica G Anania,Akshaya Ramesh,Ryan C Winger,Xiaoming Jia,Ann Herman,Christopher Harp,Amit Bar-Or
    Source: JAMA neurology
    CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In this study, activated glial markers (in particular GFAP) and neurofilament heavy chain were associated specifically with nonrelapsing progressive disease outcomes (independent of acute inflammatory activity). Elevated CSF GFAP was associated with long-term MS disease progression.

  • Characterization of cortico-meningeal translocator protein expression in multiple sclerosis

    Tuesday, January 30, 2024
    Author(s): Elena Herranz,Constantina A Treaba,Valeria T Barletta,Ambica Mehndiratta,Russell Ouellette,Jacob A Sloane,Carolina Ionete,Suma Babu,Marina Mastantuono,Stefano Magon,Marco L Loggia,Meena M Makary,Jacob M Hooker,Ciprian Catana,Revere P Kinkel,Richard Nicholas,Eric C Klawiter,Roberta Magliozzi,Caterina Mainero
    Source: Brain : a journal of neurology
    Compartmentalized meningeal inflammation is thought to represent one of the key players in the pathogenesis of cortical demyelination in multiple sclerosis. PET targeting the 18 kDa mitochondrial translocator protein (TSPO) is a molecular-specific approach to quantifying immune cell-mediated density in the cortico-meningeal tissue compartment in vivo. This study aimed to characterize cortical and meningeal TSPO expression in a heterogeneous cohort of multiple sclerosis cases using in vivo...

  • Implementing Shared Decision-Making for Multiple Sclerosis: The MS-SUPPORT Tool

    Monday, November 06, 2023
    Author(s): Nananda F Col,Andrew J Solomon,Enrique Alvarez,Lori Pbert,Carolina Ionete,Idanis BerriosMorales,Jennifer Chester,Christen Kutz,Crystal Iwuchukwu,Terrie Livingston,Vicky Springmann,Hannah V Col,Long H Ngo
    Source: Multiple sclerosis and related disorders
    CONCLUSIONS: MS-SUPPORT was strongly endorsed by patients and is feasible to use in clinical settings. MS-SUPPORT increased the short-term probability of taking and adhering to a DMT, and improved long-term mental health. Study limitations include selection bias, response bias, social desirability bias, and recall bias. Exploring approaches to reinforcement and monitoring its implementation in real-world settings should provide further insights into the value and utility of this new SDM tool.

  • Improved Performance for PMSM Sensorless Control Based on Robust-Type Controller, ESO-Type Observer, Multiple Neural Networks, and RL-TD3 Agent

    Friday, July 14, 2023
    Author(s): Marcel Nicola,Claudiu-Ionel Nicola,Cosmin Ionete,Dorin Șendrescu,Monica Roman
    Source: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)
    This paper summarizes a robust controller based on the fact that, in the operation of a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM), a number of disturbance factors naturally occur, among which both changes in internal parameters (e.g., stator resistance R(s) and combined inertia of rotor and load J) and changes in load torque T(L) can be mentioned. In this way, the performance of the control system can be maintained over a relatively wide range of variation in the types of parameters mentioned...

  • Clinical validation of a multi-protein, serum-based assay for disease activity assessments in multiple sclerosis

    Thursday, July 06, 2023
    Author(s): Tanuja Chitnis,John Foley,Carolina Ionete,Nabil K El Ayoubi,Shrishti Saxena,Patricia Gaitan-Walsh,Hrishikesh Lokhande,Anu Paul,Fermisk Saleh,Howard Weiner,Ferhan Qureshi,Michael J Becich,Fatima Rubio da Costa,Victor M Gehman,Fujun Zhang,Anisha Keshavan,Kian Jalaleddini,Ati Ghoreyshi,Samia J Khoury
    Source: Clinical immunology (Orlando, Fla.)
    An 18-protein multiple sclerosis (MS) disease activity (DA) test was validated based on associations between algorithm scores and clinical/radiographic assessments (N = 614 serum samples; Train [n = 426; algorithm development] and Test [n = 188; evaluation] subsets). The multi-protein model was trained based on presence/absence of gadolinium-positive (Gd+) lesions and was also strongly associated with new/enlarging T2 lesions, and active versus stable disease (composite of radiographic and...

  • Longitudinal assessment of neurocognitive function in people with relapsing multiple sclerosis initiating alemtuzumab in routine clinical practice: LEM-COG study results

    Friday, April 07, 2023
    Author(s): Jeffrey Wilken,Anthony Traboulsee,Flavia Nelson,Carolina Ionete,Shannon Kolind,Timothy Fratto,Robert Kane,Roopali Gandhi,Andreea M Rawlings,Nora Roesch,Mark A Ozog,John DeLuca,LEM-COG investigators
    Source: Multiple sclerosis and related disorders
    CONCLUSION: The findings from this study suggest that alemtuzumab has a positive impact on cognitive function with significant improvements in processing speed and depression in people with RMS over a period of 12 months. The safety profile of alemtuzumab was consistent with previous studies.

  • In vivo characterization of microglia and myelin relation in multiple sclerosis by combined 11C-PBR28 PET and synthetic MRI

    Wednesday, March 01, 2023
    Author(s): Valeria T Barletta,Elena Herranz,Constantina Andrada Treaba,Ambica Mehndiratta,Russell Ouellette,Tobias Granberg,Eric C Klawiter,Carolina Ionete,Jacob A Sloane,Caterina Mainero
    Source: Journal of neurology
    CONCLUSION: our data suggest an inverse relation of microglia activation and myelination, particularly in perilesional white matter tissue.

  • Differential effects of anti-CD20 therapy on CD4 and CD8 T cells and implication of CD20-expressing CD8 T cells in MS disease activity

    Thursday, January 12, 2023
    Author(s): Koji Shinoda,Rui Li,Ayman Rezk,Ina Mexhitaj,Kristina R Patterson,Mihir Kakara,Leah Zuroff,Jeffrey L Bennett,H-Christian von Büdingen,Robert Carruthers,Keith R Edwards,Robert Fallis,Paul S Giacomini,Benjamin M Greenberg,David A Hafler,Carolina Ionete,Ulrike W Kaunzner,Christopher B Lock,Erin E Longbrake,Gabriel Pardo,Fredrik Piehl,Martin S Weber,Tjalf Ziemssen,Dina Jacobs,Jeffrey M Gelfand,Anne H Cross,Briana Cameron,Bruno Musch,Ryan C Winger,Xiaoming Jia,Christopher T Harp,Ann Herman,Amit Bar-Or
    Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
    A small proportion of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients develop new disease activity soon after starting anti-CD20 therapy. This activity does not recur with further dosing, possibly reflecting deeper depletion of CD20-expressing cells with repeat infusions. We assessed cellular immune profiles and their association with transient disease activity following anti-CD20 initiation as a window into relapsing disease biology. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from independent discovery and validation...

  • Multi-omics analysis of magnetically levitated plasma biomolecules

    Sunday, November 20, 2022
    Author(s): Ali Akbar Ashkarran,Hassan Gharibi,Dalia Abou Zeki,Irina Radu,Farnaz Khalighinejad,Kiandokht Keyhanian,Christoffer K Abrahamsson,Carolina Ionete,Amir Ata Saei,Morteza Mahmoudi
    Source: Biosensors & bioelectronics
    We recently discovered that superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) can levitate plasma biomolecules in the magnetic levitation (MagLev) system and cause formation of ellipsoidal biomolecular bands. To better understand the composition of the levitated biomolecules in various bands, we comprehensively characterized them by multi-omics analyses. To probe whether the biomolecular composition of the levitated ellipsoidal bands correlates with the health of plasma donors, we used plasma...

  • Paramagnetic rim lesions are associated with pathogenic CSF profiles and worse clinical status in multiple sclerosis: A retrospective cross-sectional study

    Friday, June 24, 2022
    Author(s): Christopher C Hemond,Jonggyu Baek,Carolina Ionete,Daniel S Reich
    Source: Multiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England)
    CONCLUSION: PRLs, an emerging noninvasive biomarker of chronic neuroinflammation, are confirmed to be associated with greater disease severity and newly shown to be preliminarily associated with blood-brain barrier disruption.

  • Neurosyphilis presenting with focal middle cerebral artery stenosis and acute ischemic stroke: A case report

    Thursday, March 24, 2022
    Author(s): Lauryn Currens,Shravan Sivakumar,Adalia H Jun-O'Connell,Carolina Ionete,Mehdi Ghasemi
    Source: Radiology case reports
    Despite widespread screening and active management of syphilis infection, the rate of secondary and tertiary syphilis has increased over the past decade in the United States, especially with human immunodeficiency virus co-infection. We report a case of ischemic strokes in the middle cerebral artery (MCA) territory with focal stenosis of the left M1 segment of the MCA resulting from neurosyphilis with manifestation of subacute intermittent right-sided hemi-body numbness and transient word...

  • The impact of socioeconomic status on mental health and health-seeking behavior across race and ethnicity in a large multiple sclerosis cohort

    Saturday, December 25, 2021
    Author(s): Daniela A Pimentel Maldonado,Justin R Eusebio,Lilyana Amezcua,Eleni S Vasileiou,Ellen M Mowry,Christopher C Hemond,Raffaella Umeton Pizzolato,Idanis Berrios Morales,Irina Radu,Carolina Ionete,Kathryn C Fitzgerald
    Source: Multiple sclerosis and related disorders
    CONCLUSION: Higher SES was associated with a lower burden of psychiatric symptoms and with a higher likelihood of self-reported symptom recovery after receiving mental health treatment. Attitudes regarding mental health care delivery in MS varied according to racial and ethnic background. Future longitudinal studies in more diverse populations should assess whether co-location of mental health services with MS care helps to reduce the gap between access and need of mental health care in MS.

  • Non-ambulatory measures of lower extremity sensorimotor function are associated with walking function in Multiple Sclerosis

    Thursday, June 17, 2021
    Author(s): Sumire Sato,John Buonaccorsi,Jules D Miehm,Jongil Lim,Caitlin Rajala,Farnaz Khalighinejad,Carolina Ionete,Jane A Kent,Richard E A van Emmerik
    Source: Multiple sclerosis and related disorders
    CONCLUSIONS: Foot-tap performance and plantar cutaneous sensitivity but not ankle proprioception differed between MS subtypes. Lower walking performance was associated with lower foot-tapping and plantar cutaneous sensitivity in the RRMS but not the PMS group. This result suggests a change in the relationship of lower extremity sensorimotor function to walking performance in the PMS subtype.