Fadool Wins International Neuroscience Award

Women In Neuroscience Recognizes Fadool's Research in Brain Chemistry

 March 2, 2004

A scientist whose discovery of “super-smeller” mice holds great promise for human medicine, Debra Ann Fadool, ’85, was the inaugural recipient of the Women in Neuroscience (WIN) Merck Young Investigator Award.  According to the WIN website, the award recognizes “outstanding achievements [and] exceptional scientific contributions to neuroscience,” along with the recipient’s “potential for continuing a high level of scientific endeavor while fostering the career development of young scientists.”

Fadool, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Florida State University, leads a team of FSU and Yale University researchers who are studying a protein known as Kv1.3, an important component of the brain region that controls information about smells.  She removed this protein from a group of mice and discovered that the mice were able to detect odors up to 10,000 times lower than odors detectable by normal mice. 

Fadool’s research adds to science’s understanding of the role brain proteins play in regulating many physiologic functions.  Fadool also discovered that her 'super smeller' mice, lacking Kv1.3, ate the same food as normal mice yet gained less weight.  She speculates that Kv1.3 affects brain's ability to control numerous physiologic functions, and that learning more abuot Kv1.3 may lead to better treatments for problems like obesity and diabetes.

"We wanted to understand the involvement of this protein in nerve cell communication in the brain," Fadool said. "What we found was that this [protein] … also helps shape the structure of the brain. These animals will be a wonderful tool for future scientific research to explore the relationship between the circuitry of the brain and behavior. Also, they can be used to possibly help lessen the medical complications underlying diabetes and obesity."

See a video clip of Fadool and her research.

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