This year at the 17th Annual Northeast Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Consortium (NEALS) Meeting, RSD student Elaheh Sajjadi received the best basic science award for her poster titled, “Adenosine 2A Receptor Expression with Phrenic Motor Neuron Death.”
Sajjadi, co-supervised by Drs. Gordon Mitchell and Barbara Smith, presented her abstract about the contribution of Adenosine 2A receptors in motor neuron death, which is the hallmark of certain diseases, such as ALS. She used an experimental model of phrenic motor neuron death (CtB conjugated Saporin) and found that Adenosine 2A receptors are upregulated in the spared phrenic motor neurons. This is important since Adenosine 2A receptor upregulation may accelerate motor neuron death in ALS and those suffering from the disease may benefit from drugs that inhibit Adenosine 2A receptors.