Ka Ho Leung, an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Clarkson University, was recently awarded a nearly $300,000 grant from the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The main goal of this research is to evaluate the eligibility of chloride channel-targeted therapy for Alzheimer’s disease.
The increasing prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and the lack of successful drugs in clinical trials result in a significant healthcare burden. This project aims at prospectively evaluating chloride channel-targeted therapy for attenuating maladaptive immune response in Alzheimer’s disease.
This study may lay the foundation for chloride physiology and prospective validation of chloride channel-targeted therapy against Alzheimer’s disease and related neurological disorders.
“This project is about testing a new treatment that targets specific channels in cells to see if it can help reduce the harmful sustained immune response in Alzheimer’s disease,” Leung explained.
Leung joined Clarkson University as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biomolecular Science in 2021. His research interests lie in developing subcellular imaging tools for cell physiology investigation. He was awarded the NIH 2022 Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award. The K. Leung research group has secured around $2.2 million in federal research grants since its inception.