College of Medicine

In the span of one year, Melissa Martin has gone from being uncertain she’d get the spot she wanted in the College of Medicine’s doctoral program to winning a prestigious research fellowship that will soon take her to Paris.

As a Chateaubriand Fellow, Martin could be one step closer to achieving her goal of becoming a funded research scientist.

“I’m hoping that what I learn in Paris, which includes really great techniques, I’ll be able to apply to the research we are doing here at the FSU College of Medicine,” Martin said. “I’ll be able to get a really good publication out of it that is both interesting and medically relevant.”

And, with that, she’ll be a better candidate for both research funding of her own and, eventually, an interesting postdoctoral position.

First things first.

While trying to decide which biomedical sciences doctoral program would be the best match for her interests, Martin received good news from a friend. The FSU College of Medicine had just hired distinguished neuroscientist Pradeep Bhide.

“He studies developmental disorders, so it was everything I was interested in,” said Martin, who received a master’s in neuroscience from FSU in 2011 before taking a job doing toxicology and chemistry in Michigan. “I thought it was perfect to come back to FSU to work with Dr. Bhide.”

At the time, Bhide wasn’t sure he’d be able to take on a doctoral candidate, but he agreed to interview Martin, whose master’s focus was on neurotransmitter systems involved in developmental disorders and social behavior.

When he saw how closely her research interests and previous training aligned with the work being done in his lab, Bhide offered Martin a graduate research assistant position.

“When I saw Melissa’s resume, and when I interviewed her, I was convinced that she had the background, preparation, motivation and commitment needed to pursue a career in neuroscience,” he said.

Bhide is director of the Center for Brain Repair at the College of Medicine and is the Jim and Betty Ann Rodgers Eminent Scholar Chair of Developmental Neuroscience. The decision to set her sights on a place in Bhide’s lab was a good one for Martin.

Christine Métin, a scientist at the Institut du Fer à Moulin in Paris, has collaborated with Bhide on previous research. She contacted him to see if he knew of any good candidates for the Chateaubriand Fellowship, which receives hundreds of applications each year for 30 available positions.

“My research collaboration with Dr. Métin is very closely related to the research project Melissa was proposing for her graduate thesis work,” said Bhide. “Therefore, when Christine mentioned the Chateaubriand Fellowship, Melissa was my natural choice. I knew also that Melissa would enjoy the challenge and training opportunities associated with working with Christine in the preparation of the application, and eventually performing new research in Christine’s lab in Paris.”

The fellowship is sponsored by the Embassy of France in the United States, which offers U.S. doctoral students in STEM disciplines the opportunity to participate in research in a French lab. The six-month fellowship includes travel expenses, health insurance and a $1,400-a-month stipend.

At the Institut du Fer à Moulin, where research centers on the development and plasticity of the nervous system, Martin plans to learn Métin’s expertise in a technological skill not yet employed in Bhide’s lab.

“I’ll be learning the live cell imaging technique,” said Martin. “It will allow us to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in neuron migration during early brain development.”

In Bhide’s lab, Martin studies inhibitory and excitatory dopamine receptors and the neurological effects of prenatal nicotine exposure.

Martin believes the combination of what she’ll learn through the fellowship and what she is learning from Bhide will prepare her for her career goals.

“I want to apply my knowledge of developmental disorders, in combination with epigenetics research, to people,” she said. “And to understand, for example, what is happening with increased risk of autism.”

Visit the Office of Graduate Fellowships and Awards to learn more about external awards and resources at FSU to assist during the application process.

Prenatal exposure to nicotine could manifest as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children born a generation later, according to a new study by Florida State University College of Medicine researchers.

Professors Pradeep G. Bhide and Jinmin Zhu have found evidence that ADHD associated with nicotine can be passed across generations. In other words, your child’s ADHD might be an environmentally induced health condition inherited from your grandmother, who may have smoked cigarettes during pregnancy a long time ago. And the fact that you never smoked may be irrelevant for your child’s ADHD.

Read article [pdf]

You’re Invited to a Valentine’s Day Dinner Theater Event at the University Center Club!!!

Dear Friends & Supporters of the FSU College of Medicine and the Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Foundation, What better gift to give this Holiday Season than tickets to our Valentine’s Day event! Cover both holidays by giving a gourmet dinner, a wonderful musical comedy, help a worthy cause plus claim a 50% income tax charitable deduction in 2013! Please join us at the University Center Club for an elegant sit down dinner and the award-winning, highly acclaimed musical revue:

“Forbidden Broadway’s Greatest Hits”

Gather your loved ones and friends for an evening that’s sure to please everyone!

Friday, February 14, 2014 - doors open at 6:00 pm for cocktails, 7:00 p.m. dinner, 7:30 p.m. presentations and 8:00 p.m. show.

Seating is limited so please get your tickets by either calling Mark Marple at 850-431-4080 or visiting www.curtainsforacause.com.

View flyer [pdf]

Curtains for a Cause presents a Valentine's Day dinner theater event with proceeds designated for the Brian Jackson Dystonia Research and Discovery Program at the FSU College of Medicine.

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A Florida State University researcher is making major strides on a new drug that could treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) without addictive side effects.

“If we are successful, it will be the first safe ADHD drug on the market,” said Pradeep Bhide, director of the Center for Brain Repair at Florida State University.

Bhide, a 2013 Fall GAP award winner, received $50,000 from the university to further his research on the promising new drug.

Bhide’s research into ADHD actually began in the mid-1990s when he was studying the role of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, in the fetal brain at Massachusetts General Hospital. Two colleagues at the hospital, Dr. Joseph Biederman and Dr. Tom Spencer, who specialize in pediatric psychiatry, began working with him and turned the focus of his research to the low dopamine levels frequently found in ADHD patients.

Their partnership continues today as they pursue a drug to treat ADHD in children and adults that is not addictive. Current ADHD drugs use highly habit-forming stimulants or have other undesirable side effects. Spencer noted that the addictive nature of current ADHD drugs can cause people who need treatment to avoid them due to the negative side effects.

“Their reputation is quite horrendous,” he said.

Bhide has been conducting preliminary testing on an existing drug compound. The results, so far, have been positive and he and his colleagues predict that more widespread testing will show that the compound will raise dopamine slowly, but not to an addictive level.

That means ADHD could be treated in a safer and more effective way.

Bhide and Spencer also believe longer term studies will show that tweaks to that original compound can create a medicine that will last up to two weeks – most ADHD drugs last only eight to nine hours — and not have the addictive properties of other drugs currently on the market.

This is the second time Bhide has received money from Florida State to further his ADHD work, but his research is starting to generate interest from private enterprises as well.

Drug research is slow though, requiring years of testing and laboratory work. If the studies go as planned, Bhide said it could still take a number of years to bring the drug to market.

But from Spencer’s perspective, the possibility of a safer drug for patients could be a game changer.

“More is better,” he said. “You want a bunch of different options because you never know how someone is going to react to a given type of drug. To have something new and different is very exciting.”

The Center for Brain Repair Team will walk in this year’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s in downtown Tallahassee on September 28th. We are currently recruiting team walkers and accepting donations.

Center for Brain Repair Alzheimer's Walk Team surpassed its 2,000 goal for Alzheimer's research in Tallahassee on September 28th, 2013.

Erwin and Stefanie Jackson’s gift of $1 million will establish a fund to support The Brian Jackson Dystonia Research and Discovery Program at the Center for Brain Repair, which is part of FSU’s College of Medicine. The program is named for their son, who at age 15 was diagnosed with generalized Dystonia.

By Julie Jordan
June 6, 2013

People who have autism, schizophrenia or similar disorders often lack the ability to form secure relationships. If that condition could be addressed at the molecular level, their overall health and quality of life could improve.

Florida State University College of Medicine researcher Mohamed Kabbaj just published his latest social-relationship discoveries in Nature Neuroscience following a comprehensive study of brain behavior and partner preference.

Kabbaj studied chemical changes, or “epigenetic mechanisms,” that loosen chromatin structure in the prairie vole – a small mammal that typically forms lifelong bonds after a 16- to 24-hour mating period. Prairie voles, which protect one another from intruders and share parental duties, are often used as models to study social bonding, attachment and love in other animals, including humans.

“Prairie voles develop social monogamy,” said Kabbaj, an associate professor in the College of Medicine’s Department of Biomedical Sciences. “They cheat occasionally, but they always go back to their mate. That’s what makes them unique.”

This pair-bonding is associated with changes in brain chemistry after mating. With a drug injection, Kabbaj and his team were able to produce the same change even though the voles had not mated.

“It’s the first time anyone’s shown any epigenetic basis for partner preference,” Jeremy Day, a University of Alabama at Birmingham neuroepigeneticist who was not involved in the study, told The Scientist.

During the experiment, Kabbaj and his team first paired virgin female voles with male partners for six hours without allowing them to mate. Then they injected histone deacetylase inhibitors into the pleasure center of the brain, or nucleus accumbens. That injection caused the DNA and the proteins surrounding it (histones) to relax, allowing for increased expression of genes related to pleasure.

After the cohabitation period and the injection, the female vole displayed partner preference behavior for her paired male as if mating had occurred.

Kabbaj and his lab then examined the voles’ brains and saw the same neurobiological changes that take place in nature after the normal mating period: increased levels of the expression of genes related to pleasure and reward at the receptors that cause social attachment.

To determine whether the six-hour cohabitation period was required to produce the result, Kabbaj’s team tested the animals without pairing them with a male. They discovered that six-hour cohabitation plus the drug was required to create the same permanent brain changes as seen after mating.

The next question Kabbaj and colleagues want to answer is what mechanisms maintain this bond for life.

“In humans, it has been shown that this social attachment – the formation of this strong couple, a healthy couple – leads to an increase in life expectancy, a reduction in psychological disorders, a stronger immune system and a stronger cardiovascular system,” Kabbaj said.

This advancement in understanding social attachment in light of epigenetic factors will further knowledge about how certain drugs can help those who lack these social abilities, improving their relationships and overall health.

“It should not be long before we can apply these findings to humans, because some of these drugs are used to treat cancer, epilepsy and other diseases already,” Kabbaj said. “One just has to study social attachment in patients treated with these drugs and expand them to other psychopathologies, like autism and schizophrenia. Social bonding may occur.”

The study was co-authored by FSU psychology Professor Zuoxin Wang, as well as researchers Hui Wang, Florian Duclot and Yan Liu, all of whom are associated with FSU’s interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience. The study was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health.

CONTACT: Julie Jordan, College of Medicine
(850) 645-9699; julie.jordan@med.fsu.edu

 Publication: McCarthy DM, Gioioso V, Zhang X, Sharma N, Bhide PG (2012b) Neurogenesis and neuronal migration in the forebrain of the TorsinA knockout mouse embryo. Developmental neuroscience 34:366-378.

Publication: Saxena V, Ramdas S, Ochoa CR, Wallace D, Bhide P, Kohane I.2012 Structural, Genetic, and Functional Signatures of Disordered Neuro-Immunological Development in Autism Spectrum Disorder. PLoS One.  2012;7(12):e48835. Epub 2012 Dec 4.

An application by Drs. Pradeep Bhide, Ph.D. and Nutan Sharma, M.D., Ph.D. (Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School) titled “Dopamine dysfunction in DYT1 dystonia” has been approved for funding by the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program.