Name:
Prof. Matthew Gentry
Email
matthew.gentry@ufl.edu
Phone
(352) 294-8387
Faculty Department/Division
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
This project is primarily:
Translational
Research Project Description:
Dr. Gentry is Director of the NIH-funded Lafora Epilepsy Cure Initiative (LECI) and Chair of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at University of Florida. The LECI is a consortium of Lafora disease (LD) researchers from around the world funded by a NIH P01 (PI: Gentry) to define the basic mechanisms of LD and translate the findings into pre-clinical therapies. LD is a glycogen storage disease, progressive myoclonic epilepsy, and childhood dementia. He has been working on LD for 17 years to define the disease-causing mechanisms of this fatal autosomal recessive disease and to develop therapies. This work has yielded three therapeutic platforms: traditional small molecule, anti-sense oligonucleotide, and an antibody-enzyme fusion. Each drug targets glycogen and either down-regulates glycogen metabolism or degrades aberrant glycogen-link accumulations. He is also PI of a non-overlapping NINDS R35 on brain metabolism and has been continuously funded by NIH since 2007. Collectively, the Sun and Gentry labs established a pipeline to perform traditional and spatial metabolomics on samples from control and diseased mice that yield foundational insights into both normal and diseased metabolic pathways. Collaborating with the Sun laboratory at UF, the Gentry laboratory studies: Alzheimer’s disease, Lafora disease, Glut1 Deficiency Syndrome, Pompe disease, Cori disease, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, lung cancer, and Ewing sarcoma while collaborating with numerous other labs on exciting projects. Students interested in this work should contact Drs. Gentry and/or Sun for more details.
Does this project have an international component or travel?
No