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Nobuyoshi Suto Awarded Grant to Develop Method for Exploring Drug Relapse Treatment

Nobuyoshi Suto, a faculty member at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), has been awarded a grant of more than $500,000 over two years from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

The funding will support research to develop a new method for functional gene expression profiling of a medicinal compound. For this initial investigation, Suto and his colleagues will focus on the epigenetic mechanism behind the promising anti-relapse action of cannabidiol—a naturally occurring compound found in the marijuana plant.

“Drug addiction is a chronic relapsing disorder with extensive societal ramifications,” said Suto. “Naturally occurring compounds, such as cannabidiol, tend to have many biological targets that may or may not be functionally relevant to their therapeutic effects. It is therefore critical to determine the precise mechanisms for the anti-relapse action of cannabidiol as comprehensively as possible.”

Once established, the method can be applied to determine the gene expression profiles uniquely linked to the therapeutic action of other types of medicinal compounds and medications. “The knowledge gained through such studies then can be utilized to improve the efficacy of medications via precise identification of on- and off-target effects, and also to identify novel druggable targets,” Suto added.

Suto emphasized the collaborative nature of the study, which will involve TSRI faculty members Pietro Sanna and Friedbert Weiss, scientists at NIDA and the University of California, San Diego, as well as experts at the TSRI Flow Cytometry and DNA Array Cores.





Send comments to: press[at]scripps.edu

suto
Assistant Professor Nobuyoshi Suto