A drug used to treat and prevent HIV/AIDS is showing promise as a potential therapy for Alzheimer’s disease.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has selected Joshua Denny, MD, MS, vice president of Personalized Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, to be the chief executive officer of the federal All of Us Research Program.

Poorly functioning AMPARs have been linked to a wide range of neurological and psychiatric disorders including seizures, Alzheimer’s disease, major depression and autism spectrum disorder. Understanding how AMPARs are formed and operate is essential for the rational design of pharmacological compounds that, by tuning AMPAR activity up or down, could improve treatment of these conditions.

To explore how fear becomes entrenched, VUMC researchers traveled down the precise neuronal pathways in the brains of mice that trigger fear responses, and which normally extinguish the behaviors once the danger has passed.

Researchers at VUMC have taken a major step that could ultimately facilitate development of a new class of antidepressants which may relieve symptoms more rapidly and effectively and with fewer side effects than current medications.

VUMC has been awarded a three-year, $3 million grant to map — in unprecedented detail — the biology of Crohn’s disease.