Erich Gulbins has an arresting idea. The director of the Institute of Molecular Biology, at the University of Duisburg-Essen, reckons that a generic tricyclic antidepressant, the nonselective serotonin reuptake inhibitor amitriptyline, could play a beneficial role in conditions as diverse and apparently unrelated as cystic fibrosis and cancer. Evidence to support this hypothesis is in place. And the translational work needed to convert these findings into clinical applications is getting underway.
Gulbins is part of a new generation of scientists who have recently energized the university's life sciences effort. A medical graduate of the University of Heidelberg, Gulbins oscillated between posts in Germany and the United States for the past decade and a half. The influence of the latter is still in evidence. Gulbins exudes the kind of easygoing, can-do attitude of many Americans. He completed a postdoctoral stint at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and ...
