[Source: Physorg.com] – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a scientist at the Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center a $275,000 grant to study a rare brain receptor that may be a new smoking cessation target.
Throughout the next two years, researcher Paul Whiteaker, PhD, and other scientists in the Barrow Neurochemistry Laboratory will use the NIH Exploratory/Developmental grant to create an artificial system to produce the rare a6 nicotinic receptors normally found in the brain. They will then be able to study the way potential therapeutic drugs interact with this key receptor that has been implicated in diseases ranging from addictions to Parkinson’s disease. Previous studies have been hindered because of the a6 receptors’ scarcity and the complexity in studying them in isolation from other nicotinic receptor types.
For more information: Barrow researcher awarded $275,000