Dr. Gordon W. Glazner

Biography

Dr. Gordon W. Glazner is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Manitoba, Canada.

Research Interest

laboratory has recently discovered a new regulation system in neurons that is related to the pathology of Alzheimers and stroke. We have found that under certain kinds of stress, like those found in neurological disease, a whole group of proteins are destroyed. This protein degradation is controlled by the movement of calcium inside the neuron, which for many years has been known to play a part in the death of the cells, but nobody has ever been able to determine why. Working with Dr. Kathleen Binns and Keith Ashman at the University of Toronto, we have identified these proteins, and found them to be a collection of enzymes that are critical to the survival and normal functioning of the neurons. This work likely has major implications outside of neuroscience, since this pathway is seen in other cells as well. This new breakthrough has attracted major international attention. Dr. Alexi Verkhratsky, a world-renowned professor and Head of Neuroscience at the University of Manchester, and editor of the journal Cell Calcium, has agreed to come to St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre for a month this spring to focus on this discovery. Dr. Verkhratsky and I will also be investigating how amyloid beta peptide, the major component of senile plaques in AD, causes movement of calcium in neurons, and whether this new protein degradation pathway is a key to neuronal death.