When I first started learning about cannabidiol’s use in epilepsy patients back in 2013, the agent was shrouded in taboo with a sprinkling of “homeopathic medicine” vibes. Because of the decades-long war on drugs, marijuana and marijuana plant-derived compounds were considered far too imperfect and far too risky to be used for medical purposes. But Read More…
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Diving into gene expression panels
We’ve been having a bit of fun the last few months with some big, BIG datasets. I wasn’t quite ready to fully commit to RNA-seq, but we do need to start expanding our gene expression repertoire to include larger panels. Enter the Nanostring Neuroinflammation panel. This new technique has given us the potential to profile Read More…
The revolving door of manuscripts
COVID has meant more time working at home, which means finding critical time to continue to write and publish while balancing the other obligations of homelife. Due to some beneficial circumstances of the late spring and summer, our lab has been able to get several papers submitted. We have one manuscript in re-review with an Read More…
Applying mouse seizure models to evaluate the impact of Alzheimer’s disease associated risk factors
Roughly 5% of all cases of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are caused by genetic variants in three genes, causing autosomal dominant early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Duplications in the amyloid precursor protein (APP) gene, and variants in presenilin 1 and presenilin 2 (PSEN 1 and PSEN2) cause AD nearly 100% of the time. There is also an increased Read More…
Take Care with Repeated Drug Administration via the Intraperitoneal Route
Chance findings from our laboratory over the winter of 2016-2017 demonstrated that repeated administration of investigational compounds formulated in 0.5% methylcellulose (MC) by the intraperitoneal (IP) route to mice could cause significant histological damage to peripheral organs, such as the liver, spleen and kidneys. Because MC is a very common formulation vehicle that is often used Read More…
Old models of seizure are still useful to discover new antiseizure drugs
Although numerous new preclinical models of seizure and epilepsy have been developed over the years, the fact still remains that only a few models have been clinically validated. Efficacy only needs to be established within the maximal electroshock, subcutaneous Metrazol (pentylenetetrazol), kindling models, or GAERS models to indicate the clinical potential of an investigational compound Read More…
Increasing the emphasis on age-appropriate seizure models is critical to antiseizure drug discovery
While the majority of antiseizure drug (ASD) discovery has come on the back of rodent models of seizure and epilepsy, efficacy has been primarily established in male, young adult rodents. In this regard, little work has been conducted until recent years to initially understand whether novel agents are effective and well-tolerated in rodents of young Read More…
Travel Grant Awardee at 2019 Antiepileptic Drug and Device Trials Meeting
Dr. Melissa Barker-Haliski was recently awarded a travel grant to attend the 2019 Antiepileptic Drug and Device Trials Meeting in Aventura, FL May 22-24, 2019. This meeting will cover the many different compounds and treatments in development for patients with epilepsy.
Innovating for Tomorrow’s Cures for Epilepsy
The Translational Epilepsy Research Laboratory in the University of Washington Department of Pharmacy offers a number of fully-validated preclinical seizure and epilepsy models that are commonly used for the evaluation of acute anticonvulsant efficacy. Additionally, a number of the models in use are amenable to test the disease-modifying and/or antiepileptogenic potential of an investigational drug. Read More…
Cannabidiol (CBD) reduces seizures and associated behavioral comorbidities in a range of animal seizure and epilepsy models
Our most recent article to be published in Epilepsia focuses on the anti-seizure and disease-modifying effects of cannabidiol in a range of animal seizure and epilepsy models. The recent FDA approval of Epidiolex for the management of Lennox-Gastaut and Draves’s Syndrome are the target patient population for this new therapeutic approach to the use of Read More…