Based in Jupiter, Myosin is a spin-out of the Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute, a research institute focused on developing neuroscience and oncology therapies

For 150 years, it has been believed that cerebrospinal fluid — like its name — only circulated in the central nervous system of the brain and spinal cord. Now, after testing his theory in mouse models, Scott and his team confirmed their key finding: cerebral spinal fluid flows all the way from the brain’s spinal cord to the peripheral nervous system. The study was published in Science Advances on Wednesday.

“This breaks one of the oldest standing dogmas in neuroscience,” Scott said. “I chalk it up to just paying attention to the things that don’t go the way you expect them to, and then trying to track down what was misunderstood in the first place. It’s where most of the discoveries in my career have come from.”

Driving this funding is the UF neurosurgery department that boasts two Top 5 NIH-funded principal investigators for 2023: Brian Hoh, M.D., M.B.A., chair of the department, ranks No. 1 and Duane Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D., co-director of UF’s Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy, ranks No. 4.

“This ranking speaks to our mission to improve the scientific understanding of neurological diseases and develop novel therapies to improve care for our patients,” said Hoh.

The research team is investigating the use of tDCS paired with cognitive training as a potential future way to slow the cognitive decline that comes with the natural aging process.

To further their research, Woods, an associate professor of clinical and health psychology in UF’s College of Public Health and Health Professions, and Ruogu Fang, Ph.D., an assistant professor in UF’s J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering, are co-principal investigators on a team that was awarded a $2.9 million grant from the National Institute on Aging. They will study the use of machine-learning algorithms to evaluate a large data set gleaned from a study of tDCS and cognitive training in older adults.

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Using molecular biology, electrophysiology and live-cell imaging methods, the research team from the laboratories of Habibeh Khoshbouei, Ph.D., Pharm.D., and Benoit Giasson, Ph.D., report how excessive alpha-synuclein levels in dopamine neurons of mice disrupt multiple processes, including neuronal firing properties, calcium dynamics and dopamine release. The findings, published in the journal npj Parkinson’s Disease, are aimed to help guide development of future therapeutic approaches.

“Our research suggests that reducing the rate of neuronal loss in Parkinson’s disease could potentially be achievable by targeting this mechanism in earlier interventions,” Khoshbouei said. “We hope that this study will be an important step toward discovering better treatments to manage the clinical symptoms and progression of Parkinson’s disease.”

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In a study using blood samples of patients with Parkinson’s disease and a control group, the research team, led by graduate research assistant Adithya Gopinath and Habibeh Khoshbouei, Pharm.D., Ph.D., unexpectedly observed that monocytes of people with Parkinson’s expressed significantly greater amounts of tyrosine hydroxylase, or TH, per monocyte, a type of white blood cell, than those of healthy controls, according to the paper.

In addition, the team reported that an inflammatory substance called tumor necrosis factor, or TNF, appears to be linked to a rise in TH expression in human monocytes. TNF has previously been shown to be increased in the brain and peripheral circulation of people with Parkinson’s disease.

Collaborating with the labs of Malú Tansey, Ph.D., co-director of UF’s Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease, and Michael Okun, M.D., executive director of the Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases at UF Health, the team further described that by inhibiting TNF with an experimental drug, XPro1595, TH levels in monocytes return to normal, thus showing a link between inflammation and TH levels in monocytes. XPro1595, or pegipanermin, was co-invented by Tansey and is currently being tested separately in a Phase 1b clinical trial led by INmune Bio and funded by the Alzheimer’s Association.

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The journal issue specifically address emerging ideas regarding the function of the amygdala.  Broadly speaking, this brain region is involved in emotion and processing information about valence or what the brain perceives as ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ Moreover, in the last 10 years, there is an increased recognition that the amygdala plays a critical role in decision making and specifically how our brain weighs the possible positive and negative outcomes when deciding between two choice options.

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“We are honored to have Dr. Candelario-Jalil join our Scientific Advisory Board as we advance our research and clinical programs,” said Eduardo Muñoz, MD, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of EHP. “His expertise and innovative work in neuroinflammatory mechanisms add greatly to our outstanding team of world-class scientific experts, which includes Professor Giovanni Appendino, Ph.D., a key opinion leader in chemistry, and Rao Movva, Ph.D., a Novartis Distinguished Scientist.”

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It’s a big job, managing grants, directing clinical trials, writing journal articles, courting donors and countless other things.

At home, he and his wife have three young boys of their own to raise.

So when he was approached about also applying to be the director of UF’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, he could have been forgiven for saying he had too much on his plate.

Instead he jumped at the opportunity.

“I was so impressed by the University of Florida’s commitment when we came here from Duke eight years ago, that I saw this as an opportunity to take some of what we’ve learned about using the extraordinary translational research capabilities of the university and contribute in a more meaningful way to helping the institution as a whole continue to develop and to elevate those capabilities in ways that will benefit not only my own research program but open up opportunities for other programs,” Mitchell says.

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