Nashaat Turkman
Stony Brook University, NY·Neuroscience
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is growing fast as a public health problem, yet doctors still lack tools to spot it early or track it in living people. Class-IIa histone deacetylases (HDACs) are enzymes that help control which genes are switched on.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Chemistry
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
PET imaging
positron emission tomography
radiotracer
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Optimize and automate the radiosynthesis of [18F]NT311D, a radioactive tracer that binds class-IIa HDAC enzymes, and test it with PET imaging in rats.
- Confirm the presence of class-IIa HDACs in human Alzheimer's brain tissue using in vitro autoradiography (tracer binding in tissue slices) and immunohistochemistry (antibody staining).
- Measure the tracer's distribution, breakdown, kinetics and radiation dose in pigs through PET imaging, kinetic modeling and dosimetry.
- Complete the studies needed for IRB approval and an exploratory Investigational New Drug filing so the tracer can be tested in human volunteers.
More about the research
They are part of the 'epigenetic' machinery linked to AD. So far, however, these enzymes have mostly been studied in brain tissue after death. Positron emission tomography (PET) is a scan that follows a weakly radioactive tracer through the body. A PET tracer that binds class-IIa HDACs could measure these enzymes repeatedly and without surgery in living patients.
Why it matters
A PET tracer for class-IIa HDACs could let clinicians follow Alzheimer's disease progression in living patients and may detect it earlier, when treatment may work best. If the scans show these enzymes play a role in the disease, class-IIa HDACs could become a new drug target. This could encourage the development of drugs aimed at them. The tracer may also be useful for other brain diseases.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Zhude Tu
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Medicine & Clinical Research
Track S1PR1 levels over time in macaques with MPTP-induced brain injury using [11C]CS1P1 PET, then verify the scans with autoradiography, antibody staining and ELISA protein assays on brain tissue.
Carmen Bergom
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Medicine & Clinical Research
Characterize the PET tracer [64Cu]Cu-DOTA-αvβ6-BP, which binds the scarring-linked integrin αvβ6, in mice given conventionally fractionated radiation, and identify blood biomarkers of radiation-induced pulmonary fibrosis.
Robert Van Dam
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Chemistry
Integrate in situ radiation detectors into droplet-array radiochemistry platforms to measure radioactivity at different stages of each parallel reaction.
The school
Stony Brook University: 32 labs on PI Pages, $319M a year on research, 289 research doctorates a year.
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