WELCOME TO THE MEYERLAB!

Meyerlab consists of about 15 researchers, depending on the time of the year. There are some PhDs, some MDs, some pre-MDs, some technicians, and some, actually quite a few pre-BS students.

There are several lines of research, related to the neurobiology of aging:

While the research is the basic benchtop variety, our goal is to turn these results into clinically useful techniques and drugs.

All of our gene-therapy approaches involve constructs derived from the adeno-associated virus (AAV), based on this virus' lack of pathogenicity and ability to drive gene expression in post-mitotic cells such as neurons. Dr. David Shafron and Chris Simpkins have been characterizing a novel NMDA R1 receptor levels and hopefully protecting against ischemic damage. Sam Wang, soon to be a PhD, is studying several AAV constructs able to drive NGF expression, with the help of Marcia. Dr. Ron Klein, relatively new to the lab, has constructed a BDNF-expressing clone, and has been characterizing two clones prepared fron other investigators in the lab previously, able to drive tyrosine hydroxylase and neuropeptide Y expression. Josh Ruttenberg recently constructed an alpha7 nicotinic receptor expression vector, and now that he is on his way to medical/graduate school, Allison Dasta is continuing the project. Most of the time, when the above-mentioned investigators need to conduct gene-transfer studies in vivo, Craig Meyers is the person who is called on for surgical and histological assistance.

The nicotinic studies involve novel anabaseine-derived compounds that are selective for alpha7 receptors, that improve learning and memory in several models, and that are neuroprotective in a variety of models as well. Dr. Chris de Fiebre is the investigator who discovered the receptor function of these compounds using the Xenopus oocyte gene expression system, and he has gone on to conduct a variety of behavioral and biochemical studies with these compunds. Craig Meyers is again involved, mostly with behavioral studies (e.g., Morris Water Task, passive avoidance). Ee Tein Tay is the student who is putting this Web page together; she is also the one who helped set up the behavioral and lesion paradigms we use to study nicotinic agents presently. Dr. Guang Ling Huang has also conducted a variety of behavioral studies. Neuroprotective studies have also been performed by some recently departed members of the laboratory, notably Brigette Finklestein, now in grad school in Emory, and Dr. David Greenwald, who returned to neurosurgery service after demonstrating neuroprotection in the foal ischemia model.

And of course there are many collaborators, who we hope you will have time to look up on connected pages.

It is best to hear the research stories from the people in the lab who are doing the experiments, and their stories are in adjoining pages currently under construction.