# Therapeutic Core

> **NIH NIH P30** · JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $370,814

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY – THERAPEUTIC CORE 
The Therapeutic Core of the Johns Hopkins NIMH Center for Novel Therapeutics of HIV-associated Cognitive 
Disorders (HAND) will play an integral role in the development of new therapeutic agents for HAND. The 
Therapeutic Core is operated by the Johns Hopkins Drug Discovery (JHDD) program, an integrated drug 
discovery team with extensive Pharma experience and capabilities in medicinal chemistry, assay 
development/screening, drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics, and animal pharmacology. Recent metabolomics 
studies profiling the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from cART-treated HIV patients showed increases in glutamate in 
patients with HAND compared to those without the symptoms. Other CSF biomarker studies showed an 
association between accumulation of sphingomyelin and ceramide and deficits in speed of information 
processing and working memory. These findings collectively provide the rationale for exploring glutamate 
homeostasis (Objective 1) and lipid metabolism (Objective 2) as mechanistic platforms to develop new HAND 
therapies with clinical relevance to CART treated HIV patients. In addition, our core will play a central role in 
providing HAND researchers with laboratory and consultancy services in drug discovery and development as 
well as engaging internal/external academic investigators and Pharma to evaluate new therapies being 
developed for other indications in HAND preclinical models (Objective 3). Working closely with the centers’ 
Biomarker and Clinical cores, these activities should facilitate translational research towards developing novel 
therapeutics for HAND relevant to cART-treated patients.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9991918
- **Project number:** 5P30MH075673-14
- **Recipient organization:** JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Rana Rais
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $370,814
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-03-01 → 2022-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9991918

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9991918, Therapeutic Core (5P30MH075673-14). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9991918. Licensed CC0.

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