Pharmidex

N. Joan Abbott (PhD, Cambridge University) is Professor of Neuroscience, King’s College London (KCL), working within the School of Biomedical and Health Sciences. She held post-doctoral fellowships at Duke University USA and University College London before appointment to faculty at KCL.  She was Director of the KCL Centre for Neuroscience Research 2000-2003.    Her research interests are in the physiology, pharmacology, toxicology and pathophysiology of the Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB), secretion and flow of brain interstitial fluid, and measurement and prediction of drug distribution to the CNS. She has helped develop, characterise and apply several in vitro BBB models, including a model based on porcine brain endothelial cells suitable for drug permeability assay. She has received grant funding from the MRC, Wellcome Trust, UK MS Society and the pharmaceutical industry.  She has served on several national and international committees and editorial boards, including the Council of the European Society for Neurochemistry; UK Physiological Society Committee (Chair 1997-2000), and grants panels (Wellcome Trust, BBSRC).  She has co-organised several international meetings, including CVB2001 in Cambridge UK. She has published >130 research articles, reviews and book chapters.

 

Some recent references: 

Abbott, NJ, Evidence for bulk flow of brain interstitial fluid: significance for physiology and pathology. Neurochem. Int. 45:545-52 (2004).

Abbott, NJ, Dynamics of CNS barriers: evolution, differentiation, and modulation. Cell Mol. Neurobiol. 25:5-23 (2005).

Abbott, NJ, Rönnbäck L, Hansson E, Astrocyte-endothelial interactions at the blood-brain barrier. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 7:41-53 (2006).

Bundgaard, M, Abbott, NJ, All vertebrates started out with a glial blood-brain barrier 4-500 million years ago. Glia 56:699-708 (2008).

Abbott, NJ, Dolman, DE, Patabendige, A, Assays to predict drug permeation across the blood-brain barrier, and distribution to brain. Curr. Drug Metab. 9: 901-10 (2008).

Neuwelt, E., Abbott, N.J., Abrey, L., Banks, W.A., Blakley, B., Davis, T., Engelhardt, B., Grammas, P., Nedergaard, M., Nutt, J., Pardridge, W., Rosenberg, G.A., Smith, Q., Drewes, L.R. Strategies to advance translational research into brain barriers.  Lancet Neurology 7, 84-96 (2008).

Abbott, N.J., Patabendige A.A.K., Dolman, D.E.M., Yusof, S.R. & Begley, D.J. Structure and function of the blood-brain barrier.  Neurobiology of Disease, in press (2009).