DCU's ICNT 3 day workshop on ‘How to Drug an Ion Channel’
Tuesday 17 July 2007

Prof Oliver Dolly, Director of the ICNT

DCU’s International Centre for Neurotherapeutics (ICNT) hosted a three-day workshop ‘How to Drug an Ion Channel’, addressing biophysical principles of channel modulation.

The ICNT is a multidisciplinary centre which has received substantial support from SFI, Allergan and the US government. The centre hopes to develop second-generation therapies to treat a variety of dystonias or muscle spasms which can be caused either by diseases such as multiple sclerosis or by trauma such as spinal cord injury.

The aim of the event was to bring together experts from around the world, both from academia and from industry, to discuss research into potassium ion channels as they relate to diseases of the nervous system.

The event was attended by researchers and collaborators from the US, Europe and Ireland and included Olaf Anderson, Cornell University, Maria Garcia, Greg Kaczorowski and Owen McManus, Merck Research Laboratories, Jens Lundbaek, Danish Technological University, Thomas Kaukrowitz, University of Jena, Richard Lewis, Stanford University, James Trimmer, University of California at Davis, Bethan Lang, Oxford University and Morten Sunesen, Sophion Biosciences.

In an interview, Professor Oliver Dolly, Director of the ICNT, explained the research as follows, ”This area of research is devoted to trying to devise and develop new drugs which will control the communication between nerves and the nervous system, and that way be able to regulate and normalise a number of conditions in dysfunctional disease states. We are specifically interested in controlling the excitability of nerve endings. Potassium channels are a set of proteins that regulate this excitability - so by devising drugs for these channels you could increase and reduce the excitability of these nerve endings depending on the condition”.

According to the conference programme, “the gathering is for those who believe that the best part of a scientific presentation begins when the laser pointer is pocketed, the accusations fly and the chalk hits the board. The goal is to stimulate productive discourse (fierce debates) over issues of concern”.