Our group was well presented in Society for Neuroscience annual meeting 13.-17.10. in New Orleans, USA. Both Mari Savolainen and Mirva Hannula presented posters of their results, and Dr. Timo Myöhänen was involved in two other posters. For more information about SfN2012 meeting, click here.
Dr. Timo Myohanen gave 9.8.2012 a presentation of his group’s PREP and alpha-synuclein studies in the department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences, School of Medicine, Yale University, as a quest of Professor Sabrina Diano. This was a great possibility to present the group’s work in one of the top universities of the world, and we were also able to establish new collaboration with Prof. Diano’s group. Overall very successful visit.
The beginning of June was successful time for publications. Timo T Myöhänen got two manuscripts accepted for publication to international journals. The manuscripts were not about the neurodegenerative diseases, but about PREP anyway.
The publications are:
1.”Distribution of prolyl oligopeptidase in human peripheral tissues and in ovarian and colorectal tumors” by Timo T Myöhänen, Elisa Pyykö, Pekka T Männistö and Olli Carpen to Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry
2. “Different interactions of prolyl oligopeptidase and neurotensin in dopaminergic function of the rat nigrostriatal and mesolimbic pathway” by Iida Peltonen, Timo T Myöhänen and Pekka T Männistö to Neurochemical Research
The chancelor of University of Helsinki has approved the proposal of Faculty of Pharmacy for Timo Myöhänen’s docentship (adjunct professor) in pharmacology.
Adjunct professor (or docent in EU countries) is an academic rank that can be granted for a PhD who has gained scientific expertise and publications equal to another good PhD thesis. If you want to learn more about docentship, click here.
The group PI, Timo Myöhänen, starts a one-year research visit in Prof. Kathleen Maguire-Zeiss’s lab in the Department of Neuroscience of the Georgetown University Medical Center at the beginning of May 2012.
This was perfect time to have a second visit in foreing lab. My Academy of Finland position allows me to have research visits, University of Helsinki was helping me a lot, and the project is also very interesting. I hope to bring back some new methods, models and even stronger collaboration with Prof. Maguire-Zeiss’s lab.
Research activities in University of Helsinki are not reduced since PhD students Mari and Mirva are working with their projects all the time.
Our manuscript titled “A prolyl oligopeptidase inhibitor, KYP-2047, reduces α-synuclein protein levels and aggregates in cellular and animal models of Parkinson’s disease” has been accepted for publication in British Journal of Pharmacology (impact factor 4.9)!
In the manuscript, we showed using α-synuclein overexpressing cells and animal models that even a short term treatment with a prolyl oligopeptidase (PREP) inhibitor (KYP-2047) significantly reduced the aggregation of α-synuclein. This is an important step on studying the role of PREP on α-synuclein aggregation process and Parkinson’s disease.
The abstract of the publication can be found here.
Presenting results in Neuroscience 2011 -meeting
Dr. Timo T Myöhänen attended Neuroscience 2011 meeting in Washington DC, Nov. 11-19. The recent results of the PREP research group was presented in a poster entitled “Inhibition of prolyl oligopeptidase disturbs its subcellular colocalization with alpha-synuclein and reduces alpha-synuclein aggregation”.
Neuroscience meeting is annual meeting of Society for Neuroscience. It is one of the biggest scientific congresses in the world with over 30,000 participants.
Our research group obtained a grant of 20 000 € from Orion-Farmos Research Foundation for our PREP in Parkinson’s disease research. This was a second year in the row when our group got a grant from Orion-Farmos Research Foundation – we are very grateful.
You can read more here.