The centre focuses on two overarching, interrelated research aims:
- To discover and develop new therapies for a range of diseases using a bench to bedside approach
- To understand normal and disordered brain functioning in ways that can also inform the development of novel treatments methods
Research related to the first aim includes work identifying drug targets and designing new molecules to interact with them, using both traditional medicinal chemistry and computational chemistry approaches. New drugs can then be tested within the University's Clinical Trials Unit. Research that relates to the second aim is primarily addressing dementia and neurodegeneration, psychiatric illnesses, cognitive neuroscience and neuroscience drug design.
Research Areas
The Research Centre for Translational Biosciences and Behaviour has four core research strands that are each led by senior colleagues who have international standing in their respective fields of research:
- Drug Design and Delivery: Computational modelling, in silico studies, medicinal chemistry.
- Neuropathology: Alzheimer’s disease, neuro-oncology, Motor Neurone Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, pain.
- Psychiatric Illnesses: Depression, anxiety, drug abuse, autism spectrum disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
- Perception, Cognition and Neuroscience: Attention, distraction, memory, reasoning, judgment, decision making, problem-solving, intelligence, creativity, vision, language, reading.
Contact us:
To find out more please contact the Centre Co-Directors: Dr Jane Alder (JEAlder@uclan.ac.uk) and Professor Linden Ball
