Aaron McMurtray, MD, PhD

Aaron McMurtray, MD, PhD

Investigator, The Lundquist Institute
Associate Clinical Professor of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Director, Behavioral Neurology Clinic at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center

Contact

Cognitive dysfunction

Research Description

Dr. McMurtray's research is focused on development of structurally novel and repurposed small molecules that act as positive allosteric modulators of the alpha-7-nicotinic acetylcoholine receptor. These compounds may have applications in treatment of several neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, and also certain types of cancer.
Theme Groups

Education

  • BA, 1996, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA
  • MD, 2000, Vanderbilt University Medical School, Nashville, TN
  • PhD, 2008, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Recent and/or Significant Publications

Ekins S, Diaz N, Chung J, Mathews P, McMurtray A. Enabling Anyone to Translate Clinically Relevant Ideas to Therapies. Pharm Res. 2017;34(1):1-6. PMID: 27620174

Patents

  • “Methods and Compositions for Treating Neurodegenerative Diseases.” Provisional patent application No. 62/482,867, filed on 4/7/2017.
  • “Structurally novel Phenytoin derivatives with enhanced binding to neuronal voltage gated sodium channels” Provisional patent applicaton No. 62/298,322, filed on 2/22/2016.
  • “Methods and Compositions for Modulating (beta)-Amyloid/(alpha)7-NACHR Interactions” PCT/US2018/026308, filed on 4/5/2018.