FSU College of Medicine 2018 annual report 2019 Annual Report | Page 48

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DISCOVERY
MORE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE 2019
RESEARCH HEADLINES
Michael Blaber, professor in the week. “What makes ketamine interesting in our study is that preventing the body from producing a protein crucial to the
Department of Biomedical Sciences, it reduced alcohol intake, and the effect was long-lasting health of skeletal, respiratory and cardiac muscles. Pinto, in
was named to the National Academy even after we stopped ketamine treatment,” Kabbaj said. The collaboration with scientists across the
of Inventors. Blaber’s work focuses research is one piece of a larger investigation by Kabbaj’s nation and FSU graduate student Karissa
on protein systems and how they can team to learn more about ketamine, a potential depression Dieseldorff Jones, found that increased
be engineered as human therapeutics. therapy. The research was funded by the National Institute levels of the protein sarcospan improve
He has spent years perfecting an artificial human protein of Mental Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. cardiac function in DMD patients by
that could stimulate cell growth and provide relief for an The findings were published in the neuroscience journal reinforcing cardiac cell membranes.
incurable eye condition called Fuchs’ Dystrophy. Blaber’s eNeuro. research has been licensed by Trefoil Therapeutics, a private Associate Professor Choogon Lee Research faculty members Emily
biotechnology company that, as of July 2019, attracted more received a four-year, $1.2 million NIH Pritchard and Cesar Rodriguez worked
than $28 million from investors. grant to uncover molecular secrets about with a team of students who won a
Heather Flynn, professor and vice chair circadian rhythms and sleep disorders. grand prize of $10,000 in the annual
in the Department of Behavioral Sciences “We are just beginning to unravel how InNOLEvation Challenge business model
inherited genetic variations in clock competition in April before advancing
and Social Medicine, was appointed to
the statewide Opioid Taskforce. Florida genes can disrupt our circadian physiology, including our to the final round of the Atlantic Coast
Attorney General Ashley Moody and wake-sleep cycles,” said Lee. The causes of circadian sleep Conference InVenture Prize competition.
Gov. Ron DeSantis created the statewide disorders are notoriously difficult to pin down. In the study, The students’ business, InnoHealth
taskforce to combat opioid abuse in Florida, where an he plans to use the genome-editing technique CRISPR to Diagnostics, uses DNA amplification
estimated 17 people die every day from opioids. generate novel genetic mutations in mice emulating diverse and other advanced technology to
sleep disorders in humans. improve early diagnosis of the tropical
Research from Mohamed Kabbaj,
professor in the Department of Associate Professor Jose Pinto was parasitic disease schistosomiasis, known as snail fever. The
Biomedical Sciences, and his team found a co-author on a study about cardiac entrepreneurs plan to expand services in Nigeria, where
that the drug ketamine can decrease function in patients with Duchenne 10 million people are at risk of infection and 30 million are
alcohol consumption in male rats that Muscular Dystrophy. DMD is the most suffering from the disease. The company aims to lower the
previously had consumed high amounts common lethal genetic disorder among rate of the disease, which is spread by freshwater snails, to
children. It’s caused by a mutation less than 1 percent in Kano State, Nigeria.
of alcohol when given unrestricted access several times a