Glen B. Baker,
PhD, DSc
Professor
and Vice Chair (Research), Department of Psychiatry; Professor of Neuroscience,
Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta
Research
Interests
Mechanisms
of action of antidepressant and anxiolytic drugs.
Biochemical bases of psychiatric disorders,
with emphasis on depression and anxiety disorders.
Development of analytical techniques for
measuring amino acids, biogenic amines, neuroactive steroids psychiatric drugs
and their metabolites in tissues and body fluids
Drug metabolism and drug-drug
interactions: I am interested in the role of metabolism in the actions of
psychiatric drugs since many of them are extensively metabolised
and/or undergo metabolic interactions with other drugs that are coadministered. In addition, metabolites often
contribute significantly to the therapeutic effects and/or side effect profiles
of the drugs.
Roles of amino acids
(primarily GABA, glutamate, serine glycine and alanine) in the etiology and pharmacotherapy of
neuropsychiatric disorders.
The development and testing of potential new
neuroprotective agents
SELECTED
REFERENCES
Rotzinger S, Fang J, Coutts RT, and Baker GB (1998). Human CYP2D6 and metabolism of
m-chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP). Biological
Baker GB, Urichuk LJ,
McKenna KF, and Kennedy SH (1999).
Metabolism of monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Cellular
and Molecular Neurobiology 19:411-426.
Parent
M, Habib MK, and Baker GB (2000). Time-dependent
changes in brain monoamine oxidase activity and in brain levels of monoamines
and amino acids following acute administration of the antidepressant/antipanic drug phenelzine. Biochemical Pharmacology
59:1253-1263.
Tanay VA-MI, Greenshaw AJ, Baker GB,
Bateson AN (2001). Common effects of chronically administered antipanic
drugs on brainstem GABAA receptor subunit gene expression. Molecular
Baker GB and Prior TI. (2002). Stereochemistry and drug efficacy and
development: Relevance of chirality to antidepressant
and antipsychotic drugs. Annals of Medicine, 34:537-543.
Kapur,
S., McClelland, R.A., VanderSpek, S.C., Wadenberg, M.L., Baker, G.B., Nobrega,
J., Zipursky, R.B. and Seeman,
P. (2002) Increasing D2 affinity results in the loss of clozapine’s
atypical antipsychotic action. NeuroReport 13:
831-835.
Prior, T.I. and Baker, G.B. (2003). Interactions between the cytochrome P450 system and the second-generation
antipsychotics. J.
Lara,
N., Archer, S., Baker, G.B. and LeMelledo, J.M. (2003) Paroxetine-induced
increase in metabolic end products of nitric oxide. J. Clin.
Psychopharmacol. 23:1-5.
Sowa,
B., Todd, K.G., Tanay, V.A.M.I., Holt, A. and Baker,
G.B. (2004) Monoamine oxidase inhibitors and development of neuroprotective
drugs. Current Neuropharmacol. 2:153-168..
Duffy, S., Nguyen, P.V. and Baker, G.B. (2004). Phenylethylidenehydrazine, a novel GABA-transaminase inhibitor, suppresses epileptiform
activity in rat hippocampal slices. Neuroscience 126: 423-432.
Kennedy, S.H., Holt, A., and Baker, G.B. (2005)
Monoamine oxidase inhibitors. In Kaplan and Sadock’s
Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry Eighth Edititon
(Sadock, B. and Sadock,
V.A., eds.) Lippincott Williams and Williams,
Wood,
P., Khan M.A., Moskal, J.R., Todd, K.G., Tanay, V. A.M.I.,
and Baker, G.B. (2006) Aldehyde load in ischemia-reperfusion brain injury:
Neuroprotection by neutralization of reactive aldehydes with phenelzine. Brain Res. (in press).
MacKenzie, E.M., Odontiadis,
J., Le Melledo, J-M., Prior, T.I. and Baker, G.B.
(2006). The relevance of
neuroactive steroids in schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety disorders. Cell. Mol. Neurobiol. (in press).
Links
Contact
me mailto:glen.baker@ualberta.ca