Mıchael F. JACKSON

Michael F. JACKSON (Winnipeg, MB, Canada)

Michael Jackson joined the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics at the University of Manitoba in 2013. His laboratory is located in the Neurosciences research laboratories in the Kleysen Institute for Advanced Medicine (KIAM). Dr. Jackson obtained his PhD from McGill University in the Department of Pharmacology. Following postdoctoral training at the University of Toronto in the Department of Physiology, he moved to the Robarts Research Institute at Western University in 2008 as a Research Scientist and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology.

A major focus of his research is to understand how families of Ca2+-permeable channels, contribute to Ca2+ dysregulation, impaired synaptic transmission and plasticity as well as neuronal cell death in models of stroke and Alzheimer’s disease. This focus follows from a body of work demonstrating that Ca2+ permeable channels, including TRPM2, TRPM7 and pannexin, are functionally coupled to the NMDA glutamate receptor subtype and contribute to physiological and pathological processes initiated as a consequence of activating theses receptors. A primary aim is to gain mechanistic insight into how these Ca2+ influx pathways are regulated by intracellular signaling pathways, with an overarching goal of identifying molecular targets for development of agents effective in treating neurodegenerative disorders.