{"id":49948,"date":"2018-05-30T03:12:19","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T07:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/utnews.utoledo.edu\/?p=49948"},"modified":"2018-05-29T14:05:22","modified_gmt":"2018-05-29T18:05:22","slug":"medicinal-chemist-awarded-2-million-to-study-alzheimers-drug-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/05_30_2018\/medicinal-chemist-awarded-2-million-to-study-alzheimers-drug-addiction","title":{"rendered":"Medicinal chemist awarded $2 million to study Alzheimer’s, drug addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Institutes of Health awarded two grants totaling more than $2 million to a synthetic and bioanalytical organic chemist at The University of Toledo whose research is primarily focused on Alzheimer\u2019s treatment. <\/p>\n

The National Institute on Aging awarded Dr. Isaac Schiefer, assistant professor in the Department of Medicinal and Biological Chemistry in the College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, $1.9 million over five years to continue developing a drug to treat Alzheimer\u2019s disease, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse awarded him $153,500 over two years to study drug targets to addiction centers in the brain. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Schiefer<\/p><\/div>At 33 years old, Schiefer is among the youngest investigators to receive this level of research support across all NIH institutes, according to NIH records. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am proud that my lab\u2019s work in drug discovery and design at the University is garnering so much support,\u201d Schiefer said. \u201cBrain disease is heartbreaking, no matter if you\u2019re suffering from Alzheimer\u2019s or drug addiction. I hope to create new ways to understand how the brain works and help families find better treatment options for their loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schiefer developed a prototype molecule that improves memory in mice, which was the first step toward developing a drug that could be given to Alzheimer\u2019s patients.<\/p>\n

The prototype molecule was designed to increase brain-derived neurotrophic factor, also known as BDNF. BDNF, a protein, is important for long-term memory, and patients with Alzheimer\u2019s disease have been shown to have less of it. Schiefer said BDNF\u2019s ability to heal damaged brain cells could be compared to how Human Growth Hormone, known as HGH, helps athletes recover from muscle fatigue or injury.<\/p>\n

He received a $100,000 grant from the Alzheimer\u2019s Association in 2015 and a $10,000 grant from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy in 2014. His research was recently published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.<\/p>\n

Schiefer said his goal is to translate molecules created and developed in the lab at UT into the clinic as safe and effective therapeutics for patients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Isaac Schiefer, UT assistant professor of medicinal and biological chemistry, has received grants totaling more than $2 million from the National Institutes of Health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,42,3,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49948"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49948"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50022,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49948\/revisions\/50022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}