OUR RESEARCH
Overall Summary
“Research! This is, and forever will be, the basis of mankind’s efforts to unravel the causes, subsequent prevention and cure of diseases of the nervous system. Sometimes there are ‘giant leaps’ such as Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon- but in reality, most scientific advances are ‘microscopic steps’. However, it is the accumulation of these ‘microscopic steps’ that ultimately culminates in the ‘giant leaps’- or major medical breakthroughs”
- E. Malcolm Field, M.D.
OVERALL RESEARCH SUMMARY
Our research efforts have continued to focus primarily on developing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, and glioblastoma. We are conducting this research in the FNI labs in Saginaw and at CMU, as well as the Brain Research Lab at SVSU.
The discovery of effective treatments for neurological disorders is often a long, slow, and arduous process, fraught with many frustrations and setbacks. Nonetheless, each study provides new insights into what might work and what does not seem to work and each day brings us a better understanding of the diseases and more sophisticated ideas of how to treat them. Although none of these disorders, with the possible exception of Huntington's disease, is likely to succumb to a single (magic bullet) treatment, we have found what treatments show the most promise and are also looking at rational combinations of certain treatments as our next steps. We think that Huntington's disease may soon be treated with genetic therapy, but the others are more complicated and will probably require a combinatorial approach, much like what is described above for treating glioblastoma. Our preliminary results suggest that the nutraceuticals we are testing for treating Alzheimer's disease confer some protective effects, and this may be potentiated by using them in combination, which we hope to test in the near future. This is probably the case with Parkinson's disease and stroke. As mentioned at the beginning, these FNI-sponsored projects represent relatively novel approaches to treating neurological disorders and have provided the bases of insightful new studies in labs around the world, as measured by the growing number of citations in the literature. Science is a collective enterprise, and FNI has been doing more than its fair share in producing high-quality, therapeutically relvenat research.
Glioblastoma
Human glioblastoma cell (U87-MG) was stained with mitochondrial dye Jc-1 (red) and the nucleus was stained with Hoechst (blue). Image was taken by confocal laser scanning microscope with optical zooming. Total magnification= 3600x. Arrow indicate mitochondria.
OUR MISSION
The mission of the FNI Neuroscience Research Center is to examine therapies, including pharmacological, and cell-based therapies, for the treatment of neurological diseases, disorders, and injuries.
OUR FOCUS
Researchers at FNI labs in Saginaw and Mount Pleasant are making significant strides in finding new treatments for neurological disorders. Areas of active research include the use of cell culture and animal models to evaluate potential treatments for Huntington’s disease (HD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), degenerative disc disease and stroke. Additionally, we are working to develop more efficient ways of producing clinically relevant numbers of adult stem cells for transplantation into those afflicted with neurodegenerative diseases.
THE GOAL
FNI is committed to providing patients in our region with access to the most up-to-date clinical research for selected neurological disorders.
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The goal of research at FNI is to evaluate potential therapies at every phase of the process and develop safe and effective drug and cell-based strategies for the treating of neurological disorders.
pre-clinical research
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Using cell cultures, we can rapidly identify drugs that may provide safe and effective treatment of neurological disorders as well as assessing the efficacy of newly developed lines of therapeutically-relevant stem cells.
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FNI has developed close partnerships with researchers at Central Michigan University and Saginaw Valley State University, as well as collaborations with researchers at Northwestern University, University of California-Davis, University of Nantes in France and Magdeburg University in Germany.
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FNI is emerging as a world leader in developing and testing the use of adult stem cells to treat a variety of neurological disorders, including HD, AD, PD, TBI, stroke and degenerative disc disease.