Biography
Particular focuses are in molecular neuroscience and its relationship to gene activities during brain repair. My area of achievements include the first demonstration of somatic gene mutation in the brain after cerebral ischemia and I was awarded two R01 (NS034810 and NS045845) and two awards from American Heart Association. These awards lead to the development of brain probes with a potential to view gene action in live brains (R21NS057556). We have participated in at least three workshops sponsored by the NIH I have developed a novel technique for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of gene transcripts in living subjects. This technique permits targeting, imaging, labeling and manipulation of intracellular gene transcript in live brains. As such, it represents an area of research that is poised to become the next frontier of MRI. The hospital has filed four patent applications based on our important inventions. The invention involves making a nanoparticle of less than 30 nanometers in diameter, and is composed of short nucleic acid (siDNA or siRNA) with sequence targeting specific messenger RNA (the target) and an MR contrast agent (tracer). We have demonstrated that short DNA with proper sequence will target mRNA at low dose for non-invasive imaging using MRI; regulate protein expression at high dose for gene knockdown in the brain. We now have brain probes for angiogenesis, gliosis, and gender difference in gene activities of live brains. High resolution MR imaging of intracellular RNA for cell typing holds promises to translate molecular biology into live subjects for real time, longitudinal in vivo imaging. This design should have potential for pre-clinical and perhaps clinical applications, once it is validated for application in living brains of higher species than mice.
Research Interest
Addiction, Neuroscience
Biography
Prof Otto-Michael Lesch is currently president of the Austrian Society of Addiction Medicine, Head of the Addiction Medicine Research Group at the Medical University of Vienna, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. Prof Lesch has been responsible for long term studies in alcohol dependence since 1972 and has organized a large number of international clinical trials and basic research studies in alcohol and tobacco dependence. He developed clinical assessment tools to define sub-groups of addiction for better treatment approaches and the Lesch Typology, devised by Professor Lesch himself, is used to categories patients with alcohol dependence into four subgroups. Prof Lesch was the secretary of the European Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism (ESBRA) for 12 years.
Research Interest
Addiction (tobacco, alcohol, opiates and amphetamines) and there interaction with temperaments, ADHD, affective disorders and developmental disorders showing that you need this knowledge to prescribe the effective antic raving medications
Biography
Professor WK Tang was appointed to professor in the Department of Psychiatry, the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2011. Professor Tang completed his medical training at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong as an academic staff since 1999. His main research area is Neuropsychiatry in Stroke. Professor Tang has published over 100 papers in renowned journals, and has also contributed to the peer review of 40 journals. He has secured over 20 major competitive research grants. He has served the editorial boards of five scientific journals. He was also a recipient of the Young Researcher Award in 2007, awarded by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Research Interest
His main research area is the psychiatric morbidity in stroke, namely dementia, cognitive impairment, depression, anxiety, apathy, fatigue, emotional incontinence, suicidality, insomnia, pain, and quality of life. Other research areas include psychiatric morbidity in Pneumoconiosis and Parkinson’s disease, Electroconvulsive Therapy, Schizophrenia, Psychogeriatrics and Substance Abuse