In recent years, it has become necessary to take multiple approaches to comprehensively address a question or test a hypothesis in biomedical research. For labs that do not have biochemical expertise, the Biochemical Pharmacology Core offers help that facilitates their research. In the past nine years, the Core has offered short- and long-term assistance to mainly chemists and behavioral scientists in doing receptor binding, immunoblotting and Signaling following receptor activation. The work has resulted in many publications and provided preliminary results for several grant applications.
The specific aims of this application are for the Core to prove the following services: (1) Receptor binding: opioid. dopamine and nicotinic receptors and others when necessary;(2) Receptor autoradiography: opioid receptors and others when required;(3) Assessment of receptor activation by determination of cAMP level. [35S]GTPgS binding, and p44/42 MAP kinase phosphorylation;(4) Protein gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting;(5) Assessment of suitability of receptor antibodies for immunoblotting: opioid receptors initially and others when needed. The services that the Core will provide are valuable to researchers in the drug abuse field, both within and outside of Temple University. The latter group includes Drs. David Y.-W. Lee, Bruce Cohen and Cecile Beguin of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Julie Blendy, University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Michelle Ehrlich of Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. Dr. Sari Izenwasser of University of Miami. Since Dr. Liu-Chen's lab has a great deal of experience in these techniques, the data are of high quality. Dr Liu-Chen's lab has generated and purified MOPR antibodies and has worked out conditions that the antibodies worked well for immunoblotting. A new addition in this renewal is that the Core will perform immunoblotting of endogenous MOPR and/or will provide purified MOPR antibodies for researchers. Moreover, the Core will evaluate antibodies against other molecules of interest in the drug abuse area (opioid receptors and possibly others) for immunoblotting. If so, these antibodies will be valuable tools for researchers in the field. Thus, the Core is a valuable resource for researchers in the drug abuse field whose expertise is outside of biochemical area.
The core provides biochemical pharmacology services to scientists in the drug abuse field whose expertise is non-biochemical in nature. The services will facilitate the progress of many research programs and advance our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying drug abuse and addiction.
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