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Research Directory

1615 Poydras Street - Suite 1000
New Orleans, LA 70112
504.525.5744 voice
504.525.7787 fax

Jakob Reiser, PhD

Louisiana State University Health Sciences – New Orleans

Areas of Research: Viral Vectors for Neurological Diseases

The central nervous system (CNS) structural and functional complexity as well as its relative inaccessibility forms an impediment to therapies for most chronic neurological and neurodegenerative disorders. There exists, therefore, a requirement for the development of novel therapeutics strategies including protein-based therapies and gene therapy.

Synaptic uptake and retrograde axonal transport can be exploited to target therapeutics to specific cell is CNS. Dr. Reiser's team and other groups have demonstrated that a variety of viral vectors or recombinant proteins placed at the target of neuronal axons are taken up by the axons, and transported to the neuronal cell body. The therapeutic potential of this retrograde transport technology was recently demonstrated in an animal model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Quantitative analyses suggested that only a very small fraction of the intramuscular vector reached the spinal cord. Therefore, therapeutic success of this strategy will require vector targeting to enhance axonal uptake and reduce binding.

In collaboration with Dr. Nicholas Boulis's group at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Reiser is developing improved strategies for delivery and cell-specific expression of transgenes in CNS motor neurons (MNs), via retrograde transport and using cell-specific promoters. The focus will be on spinal muscular atrophy because this MN disease results from mutation of an identical gene, lending this disorder to the clinical translation of a gene therapy approach.

Also, Dr. Reiser's team will compare the utility of constitutive and MN-specific promoters. Subsequent experiments will assess the therapeutic application of these strategies on the spinal muscular atrophy mouse model by delivering gene encoding the survival motor neuron protein and insulin-like growth factor I, delivered peripherally with lentivirus vectors. 

Selected Publications

Lajmi, A.R., Kutner, R., and Reiser, J. A membrane chromatography application: A rapid, high-capacity gene therapy vector purification tool. In: process-scale bioseparations for the biopharmaceutical industry. A. Shukla, M.R. Etzel and S. Gadam (Eds.). Marcel Dekker, Inc., (2007) pp. 541-564.

Bahner, I., Sumiyoshi, T., Kagoda, M., Swartout, R., Pepper, K., Peterson, D., Dorey, F., Reiser, J., and Kohn, D.B. Lentiviral vector transduction of a dominant-negative rev gene into human CD34(+) hematopoietic progenitor cells potently inhibits HIV-1 replication. Molecular Therapy, (2007) 15:76-85.

Bai, X., Pinkernell ,K., Song, Y.H., Nabzdyka, C., Reiser, J., and Alt, E. Genetically selected stem cells from human adipose tissue express cardiac markers. Biochemical Biophys. Res. Commun., (2007) 353: 665-671.

Doebis, C., Schu, S., Busch, A., Beyer, F., Reiser, J., Nicosia, R.F., Brösel, S., Volk, H.D., and Seifert, M. An intrabody against the Major Histocompatibility Complex class I protects rat aortic endothelial cells from the attack by immune mediators. Cardiovascular Research, (2006) 72:331-338.

Yang, G., Zhong, Q., Huang, W., Reiser, J., and Schwarzenberger, P. Retrovirus molecular conjugates: a versatile and efficient gene transfer vector system for primitive human hematopoietic progenitor cells. Cancer Gene Therapy, (2006) 13:460-468.