Arrivederci, Dr. Abate
Best of luck to Dr. Carmen Abate, who just completed a six-month Fulbright scholarship with VCU School of Pharmacy.
Abate works as a postdoctoral student with Dr. Berardi Francesco in the University of Bari’s medicinal chemistry department. Since she received her Ph.D. in 2002, she says, “I am focused on the development of sigma receptors ligands that can allow us to understand more about these interesting, but still unclear proteins.”
Modulation of sigma receptors through specific ligands, she says, can result in new therapies for cancer or central nervous system pathologies.
She applied for a Fulbright to develop a pharmacore model of the sigma-2 subtype receptor. Dr. Richard Glennon, chairman of the School of Pharmacy’s department of medicinal chemistry, already had developed a pharmacophoric model for sigma-1. With Glennon’s help, Abate wrote “Identifying a sigma-2 receptor pharmacore,” which garnered her the Fulbright grant.
“These six months have been more fruitful than expected,” says Abate. She attended two courses in modeling and one in advanced medicinal chemistry. Along with Justin Elenewski, one of Glennon’s Ph.D. students, she developed a model of the potential sigma-2 receptor. She also developed a ligand-based pharmacophoric model for the sigma-2 receptor that will be published next year in a special issue of Central Nervous System Agents in Medicinal Chemistry. Glennon has been invited to edit this special issue on sigma receptors.
Abate presented her research May 22 at the Virginia Academy of Science in Hampton and July 7, with Elenewski, for VCU School of Pharmacy faculty.
“As for my past experience in Professor Glennon’s lab,” she says, “I came in 2004, for 14 months, as a postdoc for the synthesis of molecules that bind serotonin receptors (5-HT6 and 5-HT2). . . . I enjoyed that experience so much that, when applying for the Fulbright grant, I wanted him again to be my guide.”
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