The National Institute of Mental Health director Tom Insel recognized Byran L. Roth, MD, PhD, for his innovative research tool.
Bryan L. Roth’s DREADDs technology, which earned him a $2.85-million NIH BRAIN Initiative grant, was named one of the top 10 mental health stories of note by Tom Insel, MD, director of the National Institute of Mental Health.
In his most recent blog post, Insel dedicated number 9 on the list to research tools that can modulate brain circuit activity and that have pushed the study of brain function “increasingly from correlation to causation.”
Insel highlighted optogenetics, a research technique pioneered by Stanford researcher Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, and the DREADDs technique, pioneered by UNC’s Roth, the Michael Hooker Distinguished Professor of Protein Therapeutics and Translational Proteomics in the department of pharmacology.
Earlier this year, Roth, along with two other UNC researchers, received a BRAIN Initiative grant to hone the DREADDs technology. This grant also meant that Roth and his colleagues Thomas Kash, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology, and Jian Jin, PhD, associate professor in the School of Pharmacy, were part of number 4 on Insel’s list –the launch of the NIH BRAIN Initiative.
For his work, Roth was elected to the Institute of Medicine this year.
(exerpts from SOM News December, 2014 article in Vital Signs)
Read the full article in SOM News here.
For the latest DREADD information:
http://chemogenetic.blogspot.com
and the Roth Lab website