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March 24, 2005
CENTER SCIENTIST ALEX KOLODKIN NAMED HUGHES INVESTIGATOR
Packard Center scientists have long realized
the work their colleague Alex
Kolodkin does is unusually thorough and creative. Now one of
this country's most respected institutions in basic scientific research
has added its stamp of approval. And it's not only approval Kolodkin's
getting. Becoming a Howard Hughes investigator insures him of added support
for his research, work that adds critical understanding to efforts aimed
at rebuilding damaged nerves in ALS and other diseases.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced this week that Kolodkin
joins 42 of the nation's most promising scientists as HHMI investigators.
His name was forwarded in a nationwide competition among 200 universities,
medical schools and institutes that looked at candidates showing exceptional
promise within 10 years of becoming independent scientists.
A Packard Center scientist since its beginning, Kolodkin's work centers
on ways developing nerves keep on track to reach proper targets. Though
his focus is on what happens in embryonic stages, this basic understanding
could help build therapy that, for example, stimulates growth of replacement
neurons from the spinal cord to outlying muscle in adults - work Center
scientists are doing in parallel with their efforts to halt ALS.
Kolodkin's goal is to learn how proteins act as "guidance cues"
for growing nerves, alternately repelling and attracting growth to keep
a developing nerve on the right track inside the body. To define the basic
principles of nervous system organization, his lab works to identify genes
in a fruit fly model and studies those newfound molecules in mice for
a clearer picture of how they spur mammalian development.
The scientist launched his career with work that has already come to be
regarded as classic. As a postdoctoral fellow, he led the discovery of
the largest known family of repulsive guidance cues - a family of proteins
called semaphorins, which can function to prevent neurons from migrating
to wrong areas.
Kolodkin followed that work with a half-dozen more major finds, some surprising.
In addition to finding key semaphorin receptors, for example, his lab
discovered a potential therapeutic target for regeneration of nerve axons:
flavoprotein oxidoreductase. That molecule helps to regulate semaphorin-based
repulsion.
Like the Packard Center, HHMI is a nonprofit medical research organization.
It was established in 1953 by the aviator-industrial tycoon Howard Hughes.
Today, HHMI is one of the world's largest philanthropies. Last year it
spent $573 million in support of biomedical research.
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