Ubadah Sabbagh

Any therapeutic treatment of any neurological disorders today involves delivery of the drug to the brain globally, even if it only needs to go to specific regions. This is partly because we lack detailed understanding of the specific networks underlying many brain disorders. Moreover, even in cases where we have a good understanding of the circuits involved, we still do not have the technology to be able to target our therapeutics to them. To address these challenges, Ubadah used genome editing methods like CRISPR to create two new genetic tools for interrogating and manipulating brain cells in a region known as the thalamus. He is currently conducting manipulation experiments aimed at understanding the role of inhibition in modulating cognitive functions of the thalamus.

These tools have not been available to the scientific community before. Moreover, the types of neurons in the brain that can be accessed using these tools have never been studied before.