June 14, 2006
Harold Kohn, PhD, Kenan Professor in the UNC School of Pharmacy’s Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, has been awarded a $1.3 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The title of Kohn’s project is “Novel Methods to Identify Targets of the Neurological Agent (R)-Lacosamide.”
The NIH-funded study is a joint project between the Kohn and Rihe Liu Laboratories. Liu is an assistant professor at the School.
According to Kohn’s proposal, epilepsy and neuropathic pain are major neurological disorders that can be treated with a number of different seizure medications.
“Even with the use of these medications, many patients continue to have seizures and experience pain while others experience disturbing side-effects,” Kohn says. “There is a need, therefore, for new, effective agents that target novel neurological pathways for these disorders.”
(R)-Lacosamide, or (R)-2, is an agent the Kohn Lab discovered that has entered Phase III clinical trials for the treatment of partial seizures and diabetic neuropathy in the United States and Europe. Preliminary pharmacological studies indicate that (R)-2 exerts its activity by multiple pathways, but efforts to identify the sites of (R)-2 function have been unsuccessful.
This project focuses on discovering the (R)-2 binding sites in the brain, which Kohn says may provide information leading to new therapies for the treatment of epilepsy and neuropathic pain.
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