BRNI Research
Brain Science Technology
Protein-Protein Interaction
The Institute has an active program designed to provide the necessary technologies to enhance our discovery programs. Several platform discoveries have been made with exciting potential for basic brain science and new treatments for brain disease. One of these technologies screens for completely unknown proteins and their interactions in memory and other cognitive functions. Protein protein interaction profiles can characterize physiologic and pathophysiologic brain function. These same profiles may help identify drug targets as well as causes of drug toxicity. With this technology, BRNI researchers have discovered important new classes of proteins responsible for synaptic remodeling during memory storage.
Blood-Brain Barrier Transporter Technique
Institute scientists have also developed a new method, using natural ligands for receptors that regulate a process called “transcytosis”, to transport drugs across the blood-brain barrier. BRNI's recently patented transporter technique could bring a variety of drugs into the brain to treat brain tumors, Alzheimer's disease, depression, and brain infections such as meningitis and encephalitis.
Nelson TJ, Backlund P, Yergey AL, Alkon D: Hippocampal protein-protein interactions in spatial memory. Hippocampus 14(1): 46-57, 2004
Nelson T, Backlund PS Jr, Yergey AL, Alkon DL: Isolation of protein subpopulations undergoing protein-protein interactions. Mol Cell Proteomics, 1, 3: 253-9, 2002.