World Neurology & Psychiatry Congress
World Neurology & Psychiatry Congress
New York State Institute for Basic Research
USA
Khalid Iqbal is Professor
and Chairman, Department of Neurochemistry, at the New York State Institute for
Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities, Staten Island, New York. He
received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1969 from the University of Edinburgh,
Edinburgh, U.K. Dr. Iqbal was the first to describe in 1974 the bulk isolation
and protein composition of neurofibrillary tangles/paired helical filaments
(PHF) from Alzheimer disease brains. In 1986 he, along with Dr. Inge
Grundke-Iqbal, discovered that the PHF protein and the microtubule-associated
protein tau are the same and that tau in PHF is hyperphosphorylated. Their
search for an upstream-to-tau-pathology event led them to neurotrophic factors.
In 1999 they discovered that CNTF could neutralize the FGF-2-mediated tau
hyperphosphorylation in adult rat hippocampal neuroprogenitor cells and then,
in 2003, they demonstrated that the pharmacologic enhancement of the dentate
gyrus neurogenesis could improve the cognitive performance in adult rats. These
pioneering studies led Drs. Iqbal and Grundke-Iqbal to the development of CNTF
peptidergic compounds and a novel therapeutic approach that involved shifting
the balance from neurodegeneration to the regeneration of the brain. They have
shown that the CNTF peptidergic compounds can rescue cognitive impairment by
rescuing the neurogenesis and the neuronal plasticity deficits in rodent models
of familial and sporadic Alzheimer disease and Down syndrome.