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The Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics has awarded Graduate Excellence Fellowships (Fall 2011) to the following students:
Junior Category;
Michael Accardi - Derek Bowie's lab
Katrin Altosaar - Terry Hebert's lab
France-Helene Paradis - Barbara Hales' lab
Senior Category;
Varin Gosein - Greg Miller's lab
Kevin Neibert - Dusica Maysinger's lab
Stella Tran - Dan Bernard's lab
Sebastien Alvarado, a PhD student in Moshe Szyf's lab, has received a McGill MedStar Award in recognition of the excellent research in his co-authored publication entitled “DNA methylation of SPARC and chronic low back pain”.
Ankush Madaan, a PhD student in Sylvain Chemtob's lab has won a scholarship from the McGill CIHR Drug Development Training Program (DDTP) for 2012.
He has also won the best Oral Presentation Award at a recent Vision Research conference held at University of Laval.
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David M. MacLean and Derek Bowie
Transmembrane AMPA receptor regulatory protein regulation of competitive antagonism: a problem of interpretation.
J Physiol 589.22 (2011) pp 5383–5390
Communication between neurons is often carried out by neurotransmitters, such as glutamate, and their receptor proteins, such as AMPA-type glutamate receptors. It has become clear that these AMPA receptors are not alone in cell membranes but are often associated with auxiliary proteins which alter their responsiveness to blocking drugs. In particular, the transmembrane AMPA receptor regulatory protein (TARP) family of auxiliary proteins has been argued to make the receptor less sensitive to antagonists and more sensitive to neurotransmitter. Here we apply basic pharmacological principles to argue that these two effects are not separate but linked to each other, i.e. AMPA receptors are less sensitive to antagonists because they are more sensitive to neurotransmitter. We further highlight that when considering the very rapid nature of signalling between nerve cells, neurotransmitters have insufficient time to dislodge antagonists from their binding site. As a result, antagonists appear to work through a different mechanism.
Click here for more info: paper commentary
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