08/27/2008

Mark Prendergast Receives $1.7 Million Dollar Grant from NIAAA

Mark Prendergast has received a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that will be awarded on September 1.

Prendergast's work entitled "Hippocampal neurotoxicity induced by ethanol withdrawal," will bring in $333,594 this year and $1.7 million over five years. "There is clearly a need to develop new and more effective medications for the treatment of alcohol dependence, award of this grant will allow my laboratory to significantly expand our efforts to examine the possibility that stress hormone systems may be therapeutic targets in the treatment of alcoholism," Prendergast said.

"Stress both contributes to the development of alcohol dependence and is a consequence of dependence," Prendergast continued. "Because stress is as much a physiological or cellular event as it is a psychological phenomenon, it makes sense that stress hormone systems may influence the development of alcohol dependence, yet very little work has examined this possibility. My laboratory has been examining this possibility for the past 3 years and will, with the award of this grant from NIAAA, be able to expand our efforts to identify biochemical and molecular components of the stress reaction that may promote alcohol dependence."