Opportunities: Thomas Grigliatti

Thomas Grigliatti
Life Sciences Institute, University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC 1. Pharmacogenetics of serotonin, dopamine and metabortopic glutamate receptors and their roles in various neurological disorders. We reconstitue human GPCR signaling pathways in stable cell lines for functional genomic analyses, whcih include the reponse of natural occuring mutations in humans to the native ligand and to specific drugs used to treat a disorder, such as autism, schizophrenia or eating disorders.

2. Pharmacogenetics or pain receptors and pain response. This project focuses on opiod and cannabinoid receptors and teasing out their analgesic reponse from their psychotropic influence. We reconstitue the human proteome for these responses by expression the human genes in our proprietary human functional genomics system. In addition to affecting pain, compounds that target the CB1 receptor can affect a variety of other physiological events, for example newly discovered ligands for CB1 reduce LDH and increase HDH and thus are useful for those suffering from atheroschlerosis.