Development of in vivo probes to study the function of TRIP8b in cognition

Dr. Gary Schiltz will serve as a PI of the overall project, along with Dr. Chetkovich, and will be the Northwestern University subcontract PI on the Northwestern portion of the research. He will work closely with Dr. Chetkovich to advise on the development of novel TRIP8b inhibitors based on his extensive experience in early stage drug discovery and medicinal chemistry. He will work closely with Dr. Chetkovich and the rest of the Vanderbilt team to design and analyze experiments to advance the project’s goals. Dr. Schiltz will oversee the activities of the NU medicinal chemists on the project, Mr. Purav Vagadia and a new postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Schiltz will also oversee the work of Mr. Vagadia as he facilitates the in vitro screening of new compounds in collaboration with the NU HTAL facilities. The new postdoctoral fellow and Mr. Vagadia will carry out the medicinal chemistry design, synthesis, and analytical characterization of new compounds. Dr. Schiltz and other NU personnel will analyze biological data to design new compounds and propose new experiments. Dr. Schiltz will also work with Dr. Cameron at Scripps as me provides guidance on the distribution, metabolism, and pharmacokinetics (DMPK) studies to test the new TRIP8b inhibitors as they progress towards animal studies.