The scientists, led by Elias K. Michaelis, director of KU's Higuchi Biosciences Center, recently reached a licensing agreement with Upstate Biotechnology in Lake Placid, N.Y., to market their search tool - antibodies. Under the agreement, Michaelis said, KU will supply the antibodies, and Upstate will market them to the scientific community.
Receptors are sites in and on brain cells that receive chemical messages.
The antibodies Michaelis has created are designed to seek out and attach themselves to what scientists know as the NMDA receptor, so that the receptor can be readily identified in experiments. The NMDA receptor is one of four varieties of glutamate receptors, Michaelis said. These are stimulated by a chemical called glutamic acid. The NMDA receptor controls functions such as learning and memory. When things go wrong, the result may be seizures, strokes or long-term neurological diseases.