Heba Abdel Halim

M.Sc. (Pharmacy), B.Sc. (Pharmacy)

Contact Details

Room: Room N404
Telephone: +61 2 9351 6066
Email:

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy
Supervisor: Associate Professor Mary Collins
Associate Supervisor: Dr. Jane Hanrahan and Dr. David Hibbs

Areas of Research Interest: Medicinal chemistry, Molecular Modeling, Physical pharmacy, Drug formulation.

Homology Modeling of the Extracellular Ligand Binding Domain of GABAC Receptors: Towards the design and development of selective GABAC Receptor ligands.

y-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the mammalian central nervous system. GABAC receptors are ligand gated ion channels activated by GABA. Drugs acting on GABAC receptors are potential targets for the treatment of sleep disturbances, cognitive disorders and myopia.

The limited number of selective ligands acting on this type of receptors and the lack of high resolution structure of the GABAC receptors had hindered the efforts for new drugs development. In order to understand the role GABAC receptors have in the brain, potent, selective and lipophilic ligands are required.

The aim of my project is to develop GABAC selective ligands utilizing different molecular modelling techniques.