UNC researchers including Leslie Parise, PhD, and graduate student, Alex Chung, have designed a novel way to attack an aggressive breast cancer.

Led by Leslie Morrow, PhD, research shows how new compounds could target specific brain cell receptors to treat a wide variety of conditions, such as alcoholism, Alzheimer’s, depression, and posttraumatic stress.

Pharmacology’s Bryan Roth teamed with UCSF and European researchers to create a platform to screen hundreds of millions of never-before-synthesized compounds and then produce remarkably potent antibacterial and psychiatric drug candidates.

UNC School of Medicine researchers led by Mauro Calabrese, PhD, have developed a way to categorize mysterious RNA molecules by their likely function, a big first step toward quickening the discovery of their roles in human health and diseases, such as cancers.

By crystalizing a serotonin receptor bound to several common compounds, UNC School of Medicine scientists led by Bryan L. Roth discovered how slightly different drugs can cause severe side effects or none at all. The findings should accelerate the design of safer and more effective medications for a variety of conditions.

UNC School of Medicine neuroscientist Juan Song, PhD, and colleagues show how specific brain cells communicate with adult neural stem cells, a discovery that could open new investigations into potential treatments for some neurological disorders and brain injuries.

In a study published in the journal Science, researchers led by UNC Lineberger’s Qing Zhang, Assistant Professor in the departments of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and Pharmacology, suggest that ZHX2 is a potential new therapeutic target for clear cell renal cell carcinoma, which is the most common type of kidney cancer.

Two genomic-based studies from Heart Healthy Lenoir were published in the last month. Heart Healthy Lenoir was a multidisciplinary research project that aimed to reduce cardiovascular disease in Lenoir County, North Carolina by developing new approaches to care, from prevention to treatment. The lead investigator of the Heart Healthy Lenoir genomics study is Jonathan Schisler, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and McAllister Heart Institute.

Scientists led by Rob Nicholas, PhD, at the UNC School of Medicine show how the gonorrhea bacterium resists last-resort antibiotic ceftriaxone while maintaining a robust growth rate.

Andrew J. Crowther*, A.J., Szu-Aun Lim*, Brent Asrican, Blake H. Albright, Josh Wooten, Chia-Yu Yeh, Hechen Bao, Domenic H. Cerri, Jessica Hu, Yen-Yu Ian Shih, Aravind Asokan, Juan Song. An Adeno-Associated Virus-Based Toolkit for Preferential Targeting and Manipulating Quiescent Neural Stem Cells in the Adult Hippocampus. Stem Cell Reports 10(3): 1146–1159, 2018. PMC5918266 *Co-first authors. Cover credit: Hechen Bao, Mengting Dai, and Andrew Crowther.
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