A tiny piece of a critical receptor that fuels the brain and without which sentient beings cannot live has been discovered by University at Buffalo scientists as a promising new drug target for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. The research on the NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptor is being published online Oct. 11 in Nature Communications. “This is the first time that this site has been shown to be useful as a drug target,” says Gabriela K. Popescu, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry in UB’s School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and senior author on the study.
