Pharmacology celebrates Bryan Roth’s election today to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the country’s oldest academy. We congratulate Bryan for receiving this prestigious honor!
Bryan L. Roth, MD, PhD, the Michael Hooker Distinguished Professor of Protein Therapeutics and Translational Proteomics in the Department of Pharmacology in the UNC School of Medicine, was elected today to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The election recognizes their “outstanding achievements in academia, the arts, business, government, and public affairs.”
Roth is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the UNC Neuroscience Center, holds an appointment Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and he is the director of the National Institute of Mental Health Psychoactive Drug Screening Program.
“Roth’s lab invented a technology called Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drug (DREADD), which is now used in hundreds of labs around the country searching for more targeted therapies for a variety of conditions.
Roth most recently has teamed up with colleagues around the world, including at UC-San Francisco, to solve the crystal structures of various brain cell receptors attached to known compounds. Learning what these tiny, complex receptors look like bound to a compound that activates them is considered the first big step toward creating better therapies for a host of conditions, without causing dramatic side effects. In 2018, Roth and colleagues were the first to solve the crystal structure of the activated kappa opioid receptor bound to a derivative of morphine. They then created a new drug-like compound that activates only that receptor, a key step in the development of better pain medications. Before that, Roth and colleagues were the first to solve the crystal structure of a serotonin receptor bound to LSD, learning along the way why the psychoactive effects of LSD last so long.”
~excepted from the full article by Mark Derewicz on SOM News
More pics from the celebration, click for larger view:
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