Posted by SLS on November 14, 2000, at 16:54:44
In reply to Interesting Bio-Psych Info, posted by Ant-Rock on November 14, 2000, at 11:16:23
Thank you very much, Anthony.
- Scott
> Synaptic Pharmaceutical Announces Discovery of New Class of Receptors
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> PARAMUS, N.J., Nov. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Synaptic Pharmaceutical Corporation (Nasdaq: SNAP) today announced the discovery of a new class of receptors for "Trace Amines," a family of chemical messengers thought to play a role in stress related illnesses including depression, migraine, asthma, and hypertension. The Company is expanding its drug discovery efforts to include this class of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). The discovery is being reported today at the 30th Annual Society for Neuroscience Meeting in New Orleans, November 4 - 9.
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> Over the last 20 years, several lines of evidence have pointed to trace amines as neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, however, researchers have been unable to find Trace Amine receptors in mammalian systems, until the Synaptic discovery.
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> In commenting on the discovery, Kathleen P. Mullinix, Ph.D., chairman, president and chief executive officer of Synaptic said, "We are very excited about this new discovery at Synaptic, which will allow our drug discovery effort to expand into this new family of receptors. The close relationship of this family to receptors for the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine increases our confidence that we may be dealing with a particularly "druggable" class of targets."
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> Trace Amines which act on the newly-discovered receptors include Tyramine, Tryptamine and Beta-Phenylamine. Trace Amines are closely related to biogenic amines, which include the classical neurotransmitters, serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. The receptors and transporters for biogenic amines are the target for a number of blockbuster drugs for the treatment of depression, heart disease, migraine headache, ulcers and allergy. Synaptic researcher believe the similarities between Trace Amines and biogenic amines makes Trace Amine receptors attractive targets for developing treatments for a wide variety of disorders.
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> Synaptic Pharmaceutical Corporation has developed "human receptor-targeted drug design technology," which involves the use of cloned human receptors as targets for the design of potential drugs. As of November 6, the Company is collaborating with Grunenthal GmbH on discovering compounds for the alleviation of pain and with Kissei Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. in a functional genomics collaboration to identify novel G protein-coupled receptors that can provide new drug discovery targets for Kissei. For more information on the Company, please visit our web site at http://www.synapticcorp.com.
poster:SLS
thread:48786
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20001102/msgs/48807.html