Faculty - Firas H. Kobaissy, Ph.D.
Additional Information
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Firas H. Kobaissy, Ph.D. P.O. Box 100183 |
Firas H. Kobaissy received a Ph.D. in molecular Neuroscience from the University of Florida (Gainesville) under the direction of Dr. Kevin K. Wang and Dr. Mark S. Gold. Most of his research focused on brain injury due to mechanical insult or due to drug abuse neurotoxicity using rat model. Dr. Kobaissy utilizes the state of the art proteomics tools to investigate cell death mechanisms involved in different brain insults.
In his Ph.D., Dr. Kobaissy utilized the controlled cortical impact (CCI) rat model to evaluate protein dynamics after acute brain injury. In his Post doctoral training, he translated his work to study the proteomics changes involved in drug abuse particularly in methamphetamine and MDMA. Dr. Kobeissy is the author of several articles, reviews, and book chapters along with three international patents. He is the Associate Scientific Director for the Psychoproteomics and Nanotechnology Research Center. In 2008, Dr. Kobaissy joined the Department of Psychiatry and the Division on Addiction Medicine as Research Assistant Professor.
| Degree Program |
Institution | Field/Specialty |
| B.S. | American University of Beirut | Medical Lab Technology |
| M.S. | American University of Beirut | Immunology & Microbiology |
| M.S. | Bowling Green State university | Molecular genetics |
| Ph.D. | University of Florida, Gainesville, FL |
Neuroscience |
| Post Doc | University of Florida, Gainesville, FL |
Psychiatry |
Research & Scholarly Interests:
Dr. Kobaissy’s main interests include: Investigate the differential mechanism of Neurotoxicity off substance abuse (ecstasy, methamphetamine, cocaine, alcohol abuse); the neurotoxic consequences of substance abuse, traumatic and ischemic brain injury, as well as other major psychiatric disorders (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression). Our research focuses on finding biological markers that can indicate disease severity and localization. Markers can have major impact on quantitative diagnosis of major psychiatric disorders, and identification of injury mechanism and drug target, early assessment of treatment. Our Laboratory is on utilizes bioanalytical science and technology for the characterization of protein alteration in the brain following injury by mechanical trauma or toxic substances. Our laboratory is developing animal model for substance abuse (MDMA, methamphetamine and food addiction). In parallel, his group is employing an integrated proteomics-based approach to discover novel biomarkers for these psychiatric diseases. Recently, Systems Biology-based analysis has been implemented in our analysis to decipher differential pathways involved in neuronal brain injury. Different technologies used by our lab include: (1) 1D gel electrophoresis-MALDI-TOF, (2) 2D-LC-MS/MS (3) Western Blotting
Brain Injury, Drug abuse, food addiction, apoptosis, proteomics, genomics
Kobeissy FH, Shankar Sadisavan, Jing Liu, Mark S Gold, Wang KKW (2008). Psychoproteomics, Degradomics and Systems Biology approach to Psychiatric Research Expert Rev of Proteomics. Apr;5(2):293-314
Kobeissy FH, Warren M, Ottens AK, Mark S Gold, Wang KKW (2008). Psychoproteomics Analysis of Rat Cortex after Methamphetamine Exposure Novel differential neuroproteomics analysis of traumatic brain injury in rats J Proteomics Research (7):1971-1983
Firas H. Kobeissy, Matthew W. Warren, , Mark S. Gold (2007) Changes in Leptin, Ghrelin, Growth Hormone and Neuropeptide-Y after an Acute model of MDMA and Methamphetamine Exposure in Rats. Addiction Biology 13(1):15-25.
Warren MW, Kobeissy FH, Liu MC, Hayes RL, Gold MS, Wang KK. Ecstasy toxicity: a comparison to methamphetamine and traumatic brain injury. J Addict Dis, 25(4):115-23, 2006.
Warren MW, Kobeissy FH, Liu MC, Hayes RL, Gold MS, Wang KK. Concurrent calpain and caspase-3 mediated proteolysis of alpha II-spectrin and tau in rat brain after methamphetamine exposure: a similar profile to traumatic brain injury. Life Sci, 5;78(3):301-9, 2005.