Brain and mental health
Honours, Masters & Doctorate

Drug repurposing to treat childhood dementia

This project is suitable for Honours, Masters, MPhil, MD or PhD student

Project Supervisors

Professor Anthony White

Senior Group Leader

Background

Childhood dementia is caused by a group of genetic disorders which have effects on infants and children that include dementia (loss of normal brain function). There are no cures, and treatments limited effects. We are collaborating with Prof. Eske Derks and Dr Zac Gerring at QIMR Berghofer to screen currently used drugs to determine if any have therapeutic effects on childhood dementia.


Aim

Drugs and drug targets are identified using computational approaches, and the leading drugs will be tested for effectiveness in pluripotent stem cell derived brain cell models of childhood dementia.


Project Potential

Potential to identify new drugs to treat childhood dementia.