Leeds Neuroscience researchers win £6.5million in new funding
Three research groups in the School of Biomedical Sciences recently secured new funding:
Professor Nikita Gamper leading a MRC Program grant (industrial collaboration Framework) in collaboration with Marzia Malcangio of Kings College London, Mauro Perretti of Queen Mary's University London and Eli Lilly & Co has acquired funding for a £3.5 million project to explore 'Extracellular vesicle communication for nociceptive processing in acute and chronic pain'.
Chronic pain affects over 40% of UK adults and costs around £150 billion annually, with prevalence expected to rise as the population ages. Current therapies are often ineffective, and new treatments are rare due to gaps in understanding pain mechanisms. Our research has found that dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) act as early processors of pain signals and modulate their transmission to the central nervous system. We discovered that extracellular vesicles (EVs) facilitate inter-cellular communication in DRGs. This program will explore how EVs from neurons, macrophages, and satellite glia cells regulate pain. We will also profile blood EVs in chronic pain models and patients to identify new biomarkers, aiming to develop better pain therapies.
Dr Viktor Lukacs has been awarded a prestigious Wellcome Trust Career Development Award of over £2 million to explore 'novel molecular receptors in the sensory nervous system'.
The molecular receptors that enable sensory nerves to detect and respond to our physical and chemical environment are of high scientific and medical interest. To identify them, our team has developed a unique new screening platform we call targeted cellular evolution. This approach allows unbiased, efficient screening for novel receptor genes, and has already identified novel sensory receptors. This 8-year award will support efforts to characterise these new and exciting molecules' properties, physiological relevance, and involvement in chronic pain.
Dr Jamie Johnston in collaboration with Dr Beatrice Filippi and Dr Steve Clapcote has acquired funding from the BBSRC for a £0.95 million project exploring metabolic regulation of a major neuromodulatory system within the brain.
Neuromodulatory systems play pivotal roles in shaping behaviour and cognition. In particular, the cholinergic system has important roles in regulating food consumption, attention, learning and memory. We have identified that the cholinergic system is regulated by metabolic state and this multidisciplinary project will reveal how such regulation affects cognition, food intake and learning and memory. Metabolic health declines with age as does cholinergic function which directly impacts cognition. This work will improve our general understanding of neurodegenerative disease processes as well as how metabolic disorders can lead to brain dysfunction.