GRANT FUNDS RESEARCH ON NEW PAIN RELIEVER

Hey man, pass the chips. Wait, maybe not...

Lindsay Hough, a professor at the Albany Medical College's Center for
Neuropharmacology and Neuroscience, has received a $1.053 million,
four-year research grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to
continue developing improgan, a marijuana-like pain relieving drug
discovered in the college lab in the 1990s.

Improgan has shown promise as a pain reliever that mimics marijuana
but does not have the undesirable side effects such as addiction or
increased appetite.

But there's one big problem: improgan must be injected directly into
the brain. This obviously makes it unsuitable for use on humans. So
far, it has only been tested on rats and mice in a laboratory setting.

"The brain has its own marijuana-like chemicals called
endocannabinoids that it uses to relieve pain," explained Dr. Hough.
"In our animal studies, we have continued to find that improgan's
pain-relieving properties overlap with that of the brain's own
marijuana-like system."

So the drug study now takes on a twofold task: how to get the drug in
a form where it can be swallowed and make it to the brain and how to
make sure that form retains the same pain-relieving properties it has
now. UAlbany gets defibrillators Adding to the long list of tributes
being made in the name of University at Albany President Hall, who
died in a swimming accident two weeks ago, St. Peter's Hospital has
given two automated external defibrillators to use on campus to aid
UAlbany athletes and fans.

Hall, 61, died Aug. 13 while swimming in the ocean at Hilton Head,
S.C. Preliminary autopsy results showed that he suffered heart trouble
before he fell unconscious, slipped underwater and drowned.

The donation is a part of St. Peter's public access defibrillation
program known as Project HeartSmart. Since April 2003, St. Peter's has
given away more than two dozen of the units to area institutions,
hospital officials said.

The defibrillators were presented to Lee McElroy, the university's
vice president of athletics; Charlie Voelker, associate athletic
director; and Kevin Galuski Jr., assistant athletic director and
operations director of the New York Giants training camp. The Giants
camp takes place on campus each summer.

UAlbany has 425 student athletes on 19 varsity teams. Remembering 9/11
Campus column isn't sure how the maintenance department is going to
feel about this, but The College of Saint Rose Republicans plan to
stick 3,000 lawn-size American flags into the grounds of the college
at a part of its Sept. 11 memorial.

The commemoration will take place on the fifth anniversary of the
attack on the United States by terrorists.

The flags will be up from 2 p.m. until 8 p.m. that day. At 4 p.m., the
group will bring in a number of yet-to-be-determined speakers,
including a representative of the U.S. Department of Defense, said
club chairman Joseph Amodeo.

The event is the first of several planned by the newly resurrected
campus Republican club, which has about 45 members. The club also
plans a got out the vote campaign leading up to the November
elections, an anti-world poverty rally for Oct. 16 and a new
conservative newspaper aimed at the student body.