Gavin Stewart Dawe
Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology
Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Tel: 6516 8864
Email: gavindawe@nus.edu.sg

What are your present research interests or distinctive viewpoint to your research?

We investigate peptide pharmacology for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. We are developing novel pepditomimetics and hydrocarbon stapled peptide ligands as neuropeptide receptor agonists and antagonists and inhibitors of protein-protein interactions.

What do you see as your future research directions?

Currently research projects focus on (1) relaxin-3 and neuropeptide Y for eating disorders, obesity and metabolic syndrome, anxiety and depression; (2) on inhibitors of the protein-protein interactions of amyloid precursor protein (APP) domains, including the APP intracellular domain (AICD) and amyloid beta peptide (Abeta), for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia; and (3) on adeno-associated viral (AAV) vector of peptide constructs targeting humanin and AICD signalling. We test our novel ligands with in vitro receptor/target binding and activation/inhibition assays, by in vitro electrophysiology and by in vivo electrophysiology, optogenetics and behavioural neuroscience.

Does your laboratory have a particularly strong research expertise?

I am also the Core Leader of the Neuroscience Phenotyping Core providing behavioural neuroscience services and facilities.

Recent Publications

1. Basil AH, Gross M, Rajkumar R, Kirby M, Pinhasov A, Dawe GS. Social defeat-induced Cingulate gyrus immediate-early gene expression and anxiolytic-like effect depend upon social rank. Brain Res Bull. 2018 Oct;143:97-105.
2. Ghaeminia M, Rajkumar R, Koh HL, Dawe GS, Tan CH. Ginsenoside Rg1 modulates medial prefrontal cortical firing and suppresses the hippocampo-medial prefrontal cortical long-term potentiation. J Ginseng Res. 2018 Jul;42(3):298-303.
3. Rajkumar R, Dawe GS. OBscure but not OBsolete: Perturbations of the frontal cortex in common between rodent olfactory bulbectomy model and major depression. J Chem Neuroanat. 2018 Sep;91:63-100.
4. Marwari S, Dawe GS. (R)-fluoxetine enhances cognitive flexibility and hippocampal cell proliferation in mice. J Psychopharmacol. 2018 Apr;32(4):441-457.
5. Liu C, Zhang CW, Zhou Y, Wong WQ, Lee LC, Ong WY, Yoon SO, Hong W, Fu XY, Soong TW, Koo EH, Stanton LW, Lim KL, Xiao ZC, Dawe GS. APP upregulation contributes to retinal ganglion cell degeneration via JNK3. Cell Death Differ. 2018 Mar;25(4):661-676.