EDITORIAL-DETAILS (JPDM)
Christian Waeber
Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology
University College Cork
Ireland
Biography
Christian Waeber recently relocated from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/Harvard Medical School to University College Cork (UCC), where he is senior lecturer in Pharmacology, a joint appointment between the School of Pharmacy and the Department of Pharmacology. Early in his career, Dr. Waeber worked as a Ph.D. student at Novartis Basel, where he characterized the pharmacological profile, signalling pathways and brain distribution of 5-HT1D receptors. Dr. Waeber then joined as a post-doctoral fellow the “Centre CNRS-INSERM de Pharmacologie-Endocrinologie” in Montpellier. In 1993, Dr. Waeber joined MGH to characterize the pharmacological profile of 5-HT1-like receptors inhibiting neurogenic inflammation. Ten years ago, Dr Waeber switched topics, largely abandoning research on 5-HT to focus on the role of sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) receptors in blood vessels and brain. These blood vessel studies are significant for the treatment of cerebrovascular disorders (e.g. stroke, vasospasm), and conditions such as diabetes, atherosclerosis, pulmonary hypertension or cancer. Dr. Waeber’s team has also shown that S1P receptors have a widespread distribution both in adult and developing brain. They have characterized the CNS distribution of the S1P synthesizing enzyme, sphingosine kinase (SK), showing that it is up-regulated in neurons following ischemia. Finally, they have shown that stimulating S1P receptors with a pharmacological agent (FTY720/fingolimod) or endogenously-produced S1P (preconditioning) protects the brain from ischemia-induced damage. Finally, Dr. Waeber’s team has shown that administering fingolimod as late as 24 hours after reperfusion in a mouse model promotes long-term stroke recovery. His team has recently published that fingolimod reduces the neurological deficit and infarct volume after in situ thrombo-embolic occlusion of the middle cerebral artery, a model likely to better mimic the features of stroke in humans: combination of fingolimod and tPA improved the neurological outcome of the thrombolytic therapy and reduces the risk of hemorrhagic transformation associated to delayed administration to tPA. Christian Waeber has authored a total of 126 publications (91 peer-reviewed), cited more than 6800 times, with an H-index of 47 (Thompson Reuters Web of Science, August 2013), in the fields of neuro- and cardiovascular pharmacology, on various G Protein-Coupled and other receptors, as well as calcium channels. He has also published extensively on enzymes, and authored many reviews on antimigraine drugs, 5-HT or S1P signalling.
Research Interest
Stroke, Migraine, Neuroprotection, Cerebrovascular regulation, Vascular biology, Sphingolipids