A Snapshot seminar hosted by the School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience

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Abstract: Most gene therapy treatments are designed to treat rare genetic diseases by mitigating causative mutations. Epilepsy presents a much broader opportunity, because - no matter what the cause - epileptogenesis is associated with a change in the balance of inhibition and excitation. Many ion channels, including channels already widely-expressed in the brain, have been shown to contribute to the excitability of neurons. This means there are opportunities to use gene therapy to directly modify the excitability of neurons, and reduce seizure activity. This seminar will cover the (sometimes surprising) efficacy of different approaches to treating NON-genetic epilepsies with gene therapy, and will highlight the progress and challenges in progressing to clinical trials.