Southern Research has a growing interest in neuroscience. The organization has experienced scientists in the medicinal chemistry department that have well established programs aimed to pain control and improvement of pain controlling medication.
Recently, Southern Research has initiated the expansion of his neuroscience effort. The neuroscience project at Southern Research now includes a neuroscience/neuropharmacology program. This program has the ambitious goal to investigate the physiology of neurons and glial cells in normal conditions and in disease models. The neuroscience/neuropharmacology lab at Southern Research is a new facility set up from the ground up. Among the capability is the availability of primary culture of brain cells, a high speed high resolution imaging able to resolve complex morphologic questions and also engaged in monitoring of calcium and other dynamic parameters in single living cells in real time.
The research effort is directed towards the understanding of molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration. Also, the neuropharmacology program has the ambitious goal to use high content high-throughput analysis to identify, in proprietary compound libraries, novel neuroprotective agents to further characterize their molecular mechanisms of action and possibly identify novel neuroprotective pathways and to initiate compound development for therapeutic use in neurodegenerative disorders.
Also the neuropharmacology effort is devoted to further develop intellectual properties already generated by Southern Research scientists.
Southern Research plans in the near future to further expand in-house neuroscience research to a minimum of at least three senior faculties.