Research interests include:

1. Neuroinflammatory Brain Diseases. Understanding the role of neuroinflammatory processes in the progression of chronic neurodegenerative diseases. Since inflammatory processes are a common feature of many neurological diseases (viz., Alzheimer‘s disease, multiple sclerosis, HIV-1 dementia, cerebral ischemia, brain tumors and meningitis), an enhanced knowledge of inflammatory mediators and their detrimental effects on the central nervous system provides opportunities for the design of new pharmaceutical approaches in the management of neurological diseases.

2. Drug transport across the blood-brain barrier. Focuses on the mechanisms of drug transport across the blood-brain and blood-cerebrospinal fluid barriers. Nature designed these barriers to restrict and regulate the entry of blood borne substances into brain tissue. Essential nutrients are transported efficiently by carrier proteins expressed by the blood-brain and blood-cerebrospinal fluid barriers. However, these barriers hinder the entry of many drugs, and typically it is only highly lipophilic drugs that gain access to brain tissue via passive diffusion across the barriers. Consequently, many lead drug candidates are disqualified from further development because of poor permeability across the blood-brain barrier. There is much scientific interest in understanding brain transport processes with the goal of identifying methods, which enhance drug delivery across brain barriers.

3. N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptors. Explore the pharmacologic modulation of the functional activity and expression of brain N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDA). The NMDA receptor system is an important glutamate receptor subtype within the central nervous system. Appropriate receptor activation is critical for neuronal development and differentiation, synaptic plasticity, learning and memory processes, whereas receptor over activation initiates or contributes to neurotoxicity and neurodegenerative diseases. Hence, an understanding of the neuropharmacology of NMDA receptors may lead to the development of new drugs for disease management.