Mark Saltzman, Ph.D., Michael Levene, Ph.D.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation awarded $125,000 in April to Yale biomedical engineers Mark Saltzman, Ph.D., chair and the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Michael Levene, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering, for research on the obstacles to drug delivery in regions of the brain affected by Parkinson disease. Saltzman and Levene will develop new imaging techniques that observe the movement of molecules in the brains of living animals. These techniques will make it possible to track the way in which drugs important for the treatment of Parkinson disease move to their target areas under different conditions.

Levene is a pioneer of deep brain imaging using multiphoton microscopy in living animals. This study will expand the technology to include molecular tracking of drugs as they traverse the brain.

Saltzman has published widely on the development of efficient drug delivery technology, including the recent addition of water-soluble polymers to chemotherapeutic drugs to allow deeper and more stable delivery to various locations in the brain.