Reliance Dhirubhai Ambani Director of the Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science, Director of the Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research, Thomas J. Watson, Sr. Professor of Science, Professor of Neuroscience
Researchers use this collection of tools to screen potential drugs for action on voltage-gated calcium ion channels, which are implicated in Parkinson’s disease, hypertension, migraine, chronic pain and other diseases and disorders. They can also be used to study human disease-causing gene mutations or risk variants. In a variety of drug screening platforms, the cDNAs have been used to optimize drug specificity and efficacy for actions on specific subtypes of voltage-gated calcium ion channels.
The cDNA plasmids, when introduced into living cells, generate calcium ion channel proteins. These proteins are essential to control the flow of calcium into many cells of the body, including neurons, muscle cells and endocrine cells.
About 1,000 cDNA clones generated by the Lipscombe lab have been provided to research labs around the world, and to pharmaceutical companies through Brown’s technology office.