Stephen Massa, MD, PhD
Staff Physician, Neurology Service, SFVAMC
Associate Clinical Professor of Neurology, UCSF
Email: stephen.massa@ucsf.edu
Potential New Treatments for Brain and Spinal Cord Injury & Neurodegenerative Diseases and Disorders
Dr. Massa's work has a direct bearing on the potential development of new strategies for rehabilitation following neurological injury or disease. Neurotrophins - molecules that promote the growth and survival of nerve cells - have shown great promise in the laboratory as treatments for a variety of nervous system disorders, including traumatic brain and spinal cord injury. However, they have a number of properties that render them unfavorable for drug development. Dr. Massa and his collaborators have identified a number of new drug-like compounds that modulate receptors of specific neurotrophins in nerve and other brain cells. These molecules could potentially be administered in place of neurotrophins to treat traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, as well as many other neurologic disorders, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and ALS. Ongoing projects are investigating the potential clinical uses of these molecules. Dr. Massa's group is also studying potential treatments for Huntington's Disease (HD), focusing on the identification and investigation of compounds that regulate production of the toxic mutant protein that causes HD and related diseases.
James SE, Burden H, Burgess R, Xie Y, Yang T, Massa SM, Longo FM, Lu Q. 2008. Anti-cancer drug induced neurotoxicity and identification of Rho pathway signaling modulators as potential neuroprotectants. Neurotoxicology 29(4):605-12.
Yang T, Knowles JK, Lu Q, Zhang H, Arancio O, Moore LA, Chang T, Wang Q, Andreasson K, Rajadas J, Fuller GG, Xie Y, Massa SM, Longo FM. 2008. Small molecule, non-peptide p75 ligands inhibit Abeta-induced neurodegeneration and synaptic impairment. PLoS ONE 3(11):e3604.
