Publications by authors named "Ellen Colvin"

Patient and public involvement (PPI) must be more frequently embedded within clinical research to ensure translational outcomes are patient-led and meet patient needs. Active partnerships with patients and public groups are an important opportunity to hear patient voices, understand patient needs, and inform future research avenues. A hereditary renal cancer (HRC) PPI group was developed with the efforts of patient participants ( = 9), pooled from recruits within the early detection for HRC pilot study, working in collaboration with researchers and healthcare professionals ( = 8).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Women who test positive for an inherited pathogenic/likely pathogenic gene variant in , and are at an increased risk of developing certain types of cancer-specifically breast (all) and epithelial ovarian cancer (only ). Women receive broad cancer risk figures that are not personalised (e.g.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Researchers aimed to create new selective muscarinic M receptor agonists to treat symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.
  • They developed a unique receptor occupancy assay to optimize drug design while monitoring levels in the brain and plasma.
  • The compound SPP1 was identified as a potent, selective partial agonist, demonstrating effective engagement with M receptors in the brain, providing a new tool for studying M receptor roles in health and disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In the search for improved symptomatic treatment options for neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases, muscarinic acetylcholine M1 receptors (M1 mAChRs) have received significant attention. Drug development efforts have identified a number of novel ligands, some of which have advanced to the clinic. However, a significant issue for progressing these therapeutics is the lack of robust, translatable, and validated biomarkers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Muscarinic M1 acetylcholine receptors (M1Rs) are highly expressed in the hippocampus, and their inhibition or ablation disrupts the encoding of spatial memory. It has been hypothesized that the principal mechanism by which M1Rs influence spatial memory is by the regulation of hippocampal synaptic plasticity. Here, we use a combination of recently developed, well characterized, selective M1R agonists and M1R knock-out mice to define the roles of M1Rs in the regulation of hippocampal neuronal and synaptic function.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Genetic causes, or predisposition, are increasingly accepted to be part of the ethiopathogenesis of many neuropsychiatric diseases. While genes can be studied in any type of cells, their physiological function in human brain cells is difficult to evaluate, particularly in living subjects.

Methods: As a first step towards the characterisation of human inducible pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived neurons from autism spectrum disorder (ASD) patients, we used gene expression and functional studies to define the regional identity of the typical forebrain differentiation, demonstrate expression patterns of genes of interest in ASD and understand the properties of 'control' iPSC-derived neurons (iCell-Neurons™), with a focus on receptors and ion channels that play a central role in synaptic physio-pathology.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The demonstrated functional interaction of metabotropic glutamate 5 (mGlu₅) receptors with N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors has prompted speculation that their activation may offer a potential treatment for aspects of schizophrenia. Development of selective mGlu₅ agonists has been difficult, but several different positive allosteric modulator (PAM) molecules have now been identified. This study describes two novel mGlu₅ PAMs, LSN2463359 (N-(1-methylethyl)-5-(pyridin-4-ylethynyl)pyridine-2-carboxamide) and LSN2814617 [(7S)-3-tert-butyl-7-[3-(4-fluorophenyl)-1,2,4-oxadiazol-5-yl]-5,6,7,8-tetrahydro[1,2,4]triazolo[4,3-A]pyridine], which are useful tools for this field of research.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The group II metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptors comprised of the mGlu2 and mGlu3 receptor subtypes have gained recognition in recent years as potential targets for psychiatric disorders, including anxiety and schizophrenia. In addition to studies already indicating which subtype mediates the anxiolytic and anti-psychotic effects observed in disease models, studies to help further define the preferred properties of selective group II mGlu receptor ligands will be essential. Comparison of the in vitro properties of these ligands to their in vivo efficacy and tolerance profiles may help provide these additional insights.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF