CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Galenea Corp., a leader in the rapidly emerging field of synaptic transmission, is pleased to announce the appointment of Timothy Ryan, PhD. to its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Ryan is a leading expert on mechanisms of synaptic transmission and in developing new techniques to study this process.
“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Ryan to our Scientific Advisory Board,” commented Dr. David Gerber, Vice President of CNS Research at Galenea. “He has tremendous knowledge of synaptic transmission and has been on the forefront of developing new experimental techniques. Dr. Ryan has already made major contributions to the development of our MANTRA™ system, and as a member of our SAB he will be essential to pushing this unique system for high throughput synaptic functional screening to the next level.”
Dr. Ryan is Professor of Biochemistry at Weill Cornell Medical College, a Rockefeller/Sloan-Kettering/Cornell Tri-Institutional Professor, a former Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and two-time winner of a McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award. After obtaining a PhD. in Physics from Cornell, Dr. Ryan performed postdoctoral research in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford Medical School and joined the faculty at Weill Cornell in 1997. The primary focus of Dr. Ryan’s research lies in understanding the regulation of synaptic vesicle trafficking in presynaptic terminals and how this process impacts presynaptic function. Dr. Ryan has published numerous scientific papers on this topic and has chaired several international scientific conferences. In addition, Dr. Ryan has worked with Galenea on the development of the MANTRA™ (Multiwell Automated NeuroTRansmission Assay) system, the world’s first screening platform enabling high-throughput screening for modulators of synaptic transmission directly in primary neurons.
Dr. Ryan remarked, “I am honored to become a member of Galenea’s Scientific Advisory Board. Since most central nervous system disorders involve dysfunction of synaptic transmission, Galenea’s drug discovery platform to target this process is an exciting approach that should yield a number of therapeutic candidates for multiple diseases. I look forward to helping Galenea discover these treatments.”
Galenea’s Scientific Advisory Board is chaired by Dr. Susumu Tonegawa, Nobel Laureate and Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
About Galenea
Galenea is a leader in the rapidly emerging field of synaptic transmission (ST), the process by which neurons communicate with each other. Dysfunctions in ST are now widely believed to play a central role in many psychiatric, neurological and neurodegenerative diseases, and modulators of ST therefore have the potential to yield breakthrough treatments. Galenea has developed an innovative ST drug discovery platform that integrates three components: the MANTRA™ system, a high throughput, proprietary screening technology to identify a new generation of small molecule modulators of synaptic transmission; in vivo models using integrated EEG measures of animal behavior to more reliably determine CNS drug efficacy; and human EEG biomarkers, developed in tandem with and informed by our animal EEG data to greatly enhance CNS drug development. The company is advancing a novel pro-cognitive program derived from the platform and the approach can be extended to address multiple CNS disorders. Based in Cambridge, MA, Galenea has assembled a compelling scientific team, balancing academic aptitude with industry experience and entrepreneurship. For more information about Galenea, please visit the company’s website at www.galenea.com.