Pharmacology and Chemical Biology professor Michael Palladino's work on metabolic diseases featured in WTAE story about child with TPI deficiency

Professor & Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs Michael Palladino's work on metabolic diseases was recently featured in a WTAE story about 11-month old JT Borofka, his parents, his triosephosphate isomerase (TPI) deficiency, and their hope for a cure.

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Dr. Palladino's lab studies metabolic diseases including TPI deficiency. Their approach is multidisciplinary using genetics, biochemistry, pharmacology and structural biology. They’ve genetically engineered Drosophila to develop numerous animal models of TPI Df and have used these models to study disease pathogenesis, the basis of progressive neurologic dysfunction and conducted genome-wide screens that identified disease suppressors. These suppressors define numerous novel therapeutic pathways and the researchers in Dr. Palladino's lab are actively working to identify drug therapies for TPI Df. To support this goal they have developed stable human HEK cells and a high-throughput, semi-automated compound screening platform. They also have obtained several human patient cell lines to validate disease mechanisms and compounds identified using their drug screening platform.