Laboratory of Matthew Schrag, MD, PhD

• Project lead for the development and execution of novel evaluation of the pervasive cerebral blood vessel pathology in Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy, a vascular amyloid pathology related to Alzheimer’s Disease, via CLARITY.

• Awarded an individual T32 fellowship award following these efforts to establish human CLARITY-cleared tissue and analytics.

• Project lead for establishing the biological function of a novel Alzheimer’s risk gene PLD3.

• Model development for Alzheimer’s Disease to mediate screening gene-interference siRNA and small molecule therapeutics for Alzheimer’s Disease in novel organotypic brain tissue culturing, ex vivo drug treatment, and live imaging.

Laboratory of Randy Blakely, PhD

• Project manager of industry/academia collaboration with Lundbeck Pharmaceuticals to investigate the serotonin specific actions of the [then] preclinical compound AA21004 (aka. Vortioxetine, Trintellix). We found that non-SERT actions of AA21004 were sufficient alone to produce acute and chronic antidepressant effects, representing a new strategy to pursue novel serotonin directed pharmacotherapies.

• In vitro and in vivo experimental evaluations of discrete roles of serotonin in acute and chronic SSRI antidepressant drug efficacy.

• Utilized a novel animal model with an impacted orthosteric drug recognition site at SERT (the designed target of SSRIs) to prove with the most targeted series of assays to date that SERT antagonism is required for the acute and chronic behavioral and biochemical antidepressant efficacy of SSRIs.

• Researched, developed, evaluated, and established an in-house cost saving standard operating procedure (SOP) and guidelines for the detection of aerobic and anaerobic beer-spoiling bacteria and evaluation of devices measuring dissolved gasses (oxygen ppm and ppb, and carbon dioxide ppm) in wort, beer, and bottled product.

• Developed a novel rodent model of drug sensitive gambling paradigm.

Laboratory of Eric Wiertelak, PhD

• Developed a device design for novel rodent models for chronic pain, aiming to establish new pre-clinical standards for greater predictive framework for new drugs and treatments for human chronic pain.

Nackenoff AG, Hohman TJ, Neuner SM, Akers CS, Weitzel NC, Shostak A, Ferguson S, Bennett DA, Schneider JA, Jefferson AL, Kaczorowski CC, Schrag MS. PLD3 is a Neuronal Lysosomal Phospholipase D Associated with β-amyloid Plaques and Memory in Sporadic Alzheimer’s Disease. PLOS Genetics. (2021). DOI Link

Grory BM, Nackenoff AG, Poli S, Spitzer M, Nedelmann M, Guillon B, Préterre C, Chen C, Lee A, Yaghi S, Stretz C, Azher I, Paddock J, Bakaeva T, Greer D, Shulman J, Kowalski R, Lavin P, Mistry E, Espaillat K, Furie K, Kirshner H, and Schrag M. Intravenous Fibrinolytic Therapy for Acute Central Retinal Artery Occlusion – A Retrospective, Observational Cohort Study and Updated Patient-Level Meta-Analysis. Stroke. (2020). DOI Link.

Schommer J, Schrag M, Nackenoff AG, Marwarha G, Ghribi O. Method for organotypic tissue culture in the aged animal. MethodsX. 4 (2017) 166-171. DOI Link

Simmler LD, Anacker AMJ, Levin MH, Vaswani NM, Gresch PJ, Nackenoff AG, Anastasio NC, Stutz SJ, Cunningham KA, Wang J, Zhang B, Henry LK, Stewart A, Veenstra-VanderWeele J, Blakely RD. Blockade of the 5-HT transporter contributes to the behavioural, neuronal and molecular effects of cocaine. British Journal of Pharmacology, 174 (2017) 2716-2738. DOI Link

Nackenoff AG, Simmler LD, Baganz NL, Paffenroth KC, Stanwood GD, Pehrson AL, Sanchez C, Blakely RD. Serotonin Transporter-Independent Actions Of The Antidepressant Vortioxetine As Revealed Using The SERT M172 Mouse. ACS Chemical Neuroscience, 8 (2017) 1092-1100.

Nackenoff AG, Moussa-Tooks, AM, McMeekin, AM, Veenstra-VanderWeele J, Blakely RD. Essential Contributions of Serotonin Transporter Inhibition to the Acute and Chronic Actions of Fluoxetine and Citalopram in the SERT Met172 Mouse. Neuropsychopharmacology. 41 (2016) 1733-1741