UCI professor is awarded $3.7 million in NIH grants for research on neurological disorders

UCI School of Medicine researcher Geoff Abbott, professor of physiology & biophysics, is the recipient of a $2 million Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (R35 grant) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and a $1.7 million R01 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The five-year grants help enable studies focused on understanding the pathophysiology of ion channel-related disorders, among them epilepsy, in search of viable therapies. The MIRA funding will support research in the Abbott Lab aimed at identifying specific potassium channel gene families linked to such human diseases as cardiac arrhythmia, epilepsy and diabetes. The NINDS grant will fund ongoing work, including uncovering the molecular basis for the anticonvulsant action of certain herbal medicines.