Description:

The Department of Pharmacology is pleased to welcome Dr. Derek Bowie, Ph.D., Professor of Pharmacology & Therapeutics, McGill University

The following, is an overview of this seminar, as described by Dr.Bowie:

The Bowie Lab uses a combination of techniques to study ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGluRs), GABA-A receptors and more recently, Na+ channels. All ion-channel families are widespread in the vertebrate brain and fulfill many important roles in healthy individuals as well as being implicated in disease states associated with postnatal development (e.g. autism, schizophrenia), cerebral insult (e.g. stroke, epilepsy) and aging disorders (e.g. Alzheimer's disease, Parkinsonism). Each ion-channel family is studied at two inter-related levels. In structural terms, ion-channel activation mechanisms are examined to provide insight into developing novel therapeutic compounds. At the level of brain circuits, we are studying the role of ion-channels in CNS disease. The talk will focus on recent findings linking deficits in glutamatergic signaling to the neurodevelopmental disorder, Fragile-X syndrome.