Ling Cao
University of New England, ME·Neuroscience
Nerve damage is the most common neurological complication of HIV. HIV sensory neuropathy affects nearly half of people with HIV/AIDS, often causes pain that is hard to manage, and has no specific FDA-approved treatment.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
HIV sensory neuropathy
peripheral neuropathy
neuropathic pain
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Dec 2028
What they work on
- Determine whether Tollip, a key regulator of Toll-like receptor immune signaling, contributes to nerve damage caused by the HIV protein Tat, using genetically modified mice combined with behavioral and physiological tests.
- Identify drugs for HIV sensory neuropathy that target the Toll-like receptor pathway, screening FDA-approved compounds with bioinformatic tools and testing promising ones in pre-clinical mouse models of Tat-associated neuropathy.
- Establish a functional In Vitro Analytical Core providing stable cell line development, transfection for genetically encoded biosensor imaging, protein analysis, and sample preparation for omics studies.
- Support the Center for Cell Signaling Research project leaders through core services, standard operating procedures, new training programs, and collaborations with other core facilities.
More about the research
One research question here is how an HIV protein damages sensory nerves, and whether existing drugs could be repurposed to treat the resulting neuropathy. Alongside this project, a shared laboratory facility is being built to support cell-based research across a university research center.
Why it matters
People living with HIV who develop painful sensory neuropathy currently have no specific approved treatment. Finding existing FDA-approved drugs that act on the TLR pathway and do not clash with antiretroviral therapy could point to affordable treatment options for further testing. The shared core adds cell-analysis instrumentation previously unavailable in Maine, serving investigators in the region.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Karthik Hullahalli
Loyola University Chicago, IL·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Define how broadly nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs, approved antiviral drugs) reduce harmful inflammation across diverse bacterial infection settings in mice, beyond E. coli bloodstream infection.
Shuxia Wang
University of Kentucky, KY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine how the macrophage protein SMPDL3B regulates the receptor CD36 and the inflammatory signaling triggered when TSP1, a signaling protein, binds CD36.
Hayley McLoughlin
University of Michigan, MI·Neuroscience
Characterize the onset and progression of peripheral neuropathy in two SCA3 mouse models using functional nerve assessments alongside histological analysis of peripheral nerve tissue.
The school
University of New England: 2 labs on PI Pages, $8M a year on research, 71 research doctorates a year.
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