{"id":48957,"date":"2021-08-11T09:47:55","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T13:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/?p=48957"},"modified":"2021-08-11T09:47:55","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T13:47:55","slug":"study-to-use-algal-blooms-to-reduce-neuroinflammation-progresses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/2021\/08\/11\/study-to-use-algal-blooms-to-reduce-neuroinflammation-progresses\/","title":{"rendered":"Study to use algal blooms to reduce neuroinflammation progresses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Bertin\u2019s research into the use of chemicals from algal blooms published in national journal<\/em><\/p>\n

A URI College of Pharmacy professor\u2019s study on the potential use of chemicals commonly found in algal blooms to reduce neuroinflammation<\/a> has been published in a journal of one of the largest scientific organizations.<\/p>\n

Assistant Professor of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Matthew Bertin<\/a> is teaming up with biotech firm Biosortia Pharmaceuticals Inc. to study the chemicals produced by algal blooms, which may hold the key to reducing neuroinflammation, a primary cause for diseases such as Alzheimer\u2019s and Parkinson\u2019s progress. His progress has been published in American Chemical Society journal, Omega<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Using mass spectrometry, Bertin and his team have isolated three micropeptins from Biosortia\u2019s chromatography library that have shown as much as 50 percent reduction in neuroinflammation in mouse cells, even in tiny doses. \u201cWe don\u2019t actually know how they are working yet,\u201d Bertin said. \u201cAre they inhibiting something? Are they activating something? How are they reducing the inflammation?\u201d<\/p>\n

Finding out is the next step. The team will use cell imaging to visualize the effect the micropeptins have. One possibility involves proteases, enzymes in a cell that cause inflammation. \u201cThey are like scissors in a cell that aid in activating other different proteins that cause inflammation,\u201d Bertin said. \u201cIf you can inhibit that protease \u2014 if you can be the rock that blocks the scissors \u2014 you can stop that inflammation process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bertin\u2019s team will next look at the effect the two micropeptins have on human cells, and seek a way to transport the molecules into the brain. The micropeptins are too large to easily slide through the body\u2019s natural blood-brain barrier. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to try to determine how it gets transported in. There are tunnels in the cell that act like gates that let in certain molecules into a cell,\u201d Bertin said. \u201cBrain cells have that barrier to keep unwanted molecules out, so getting peptins into the brain is always difficult in pharmacology.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matt Bertin\u2019s research into the use of chemicals from algal blooms published in national journal A URI College of Pharmacy professor\u2019s study on the potential use of chemicals commonly found in algal blooms to reduce neuroinflammation has been published in a journal of one of the largest scientific organizations. Assistant Professor of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1710,"featured_media":48958,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48959,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48957\/revisions\/48959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}