Sharan Srinivasan is the Molecular Pharmacology Highlighted Trainee Author for the July 2022 issue. Currently, Dr. Srinivasan is completing his Movement Disorders Fellowship at Mass General Brigham. The highlighted manuscript listed below is from his postdoctoral work with Dr. Vikram Shakkottai while completing his Neurology Residency at the Univ. of Michigan. He will be returning to the Univ. of Michigan as a Clinical Instructor this summer to continue this highlighted work under the combined tutelage of Dr. Shakkottai and Dr. Hank Paulson. The Molecular Pharmacology article that earned him the honor of being selected as the Highlighted Trainee Author is entitled “Discovery of Novel Activators of Large-Conductance Calcium-Activated Potassium Channels for the Treatment of Cerebellar Ataxia” and is available at https://doi.org/10.1124/molpharm.121.000478.
Dr. Srinivasan’s clinical and research efforts are dedicated to the care of patients with cerebellar ataxia and the discovery and development of novel treatments. He is particularly interested in how the electrophysiological properties of the cerebellum are commonly dysfunctional in several hereditary ataxias and represent viable targets for therapeutic intervention. Using a combination of a novel automated patch clamp-based high-throughput screening platform and manual patch clamp recording in cerebellar slices from mouse models of ataxia, Dr. Srinivasan can investigate the role of individual ion channels in the aberrant spiking phenotype and subsequent cellular degeneration.
The highlighted work suggests a paradigm shift in how we treat neurodegenerative diseases, emphasizing the importance of addressing dysfunctional circuitry as a complementary strategy to those interventions directed at upstream cellular and genetic pathologies. Dr. Srinivasan anticipates that new molecules targeting the dysfunctional circuitry will rapidly transition from preclinical to early clinical stages, serving as either monotherapy for symptomatic treatment or as an adjunctive to genetic therapies for disease-modifying therapy.
Outside of the lab, Sharan enjoys spending time with his wife, two sons, and dog. He and his wife enjoy hiking and exercising, and as a reward for those physical activities, they visit local breweries and wineries.