Mark Moehle, PhD has earned the very first Mahlon DeLong Young Investigator Award. He is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery. Dr. Moehle received the $55,000 award for a project entitled, “Muscarinic Receptor M4 Modulation of Dopaminergic Signaling in a GNAL Dystonia Mutant Mouse Model.” The proj- ect seeks to understand how a mutation in the DYT25/GNAL gene leads to dystonia with a particular focus on neurotrans- mitter interactions in neurons. In addition to providing key data in determining how mutations in GNAL lead to dystonia, these studies will provide pre-clinical efficacy data on the use of M4 antagonist drugs to treat dystonia.
