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Congrats to Faculty Member Roger Pertwee, who recently won the Wellcome Gold Medal in recognition of his outstanding contribution to pharmacology.

Pertwee is the 19th recipient of this award, presented every two years by the British Pharmacological Society. He is one of the world’s leading cannabinoid scientists, having discovered potential new therapeutic uses for compounds called phytocannabinoids that are produced by cannabis. Pertwee said,

Just some potential new uses we have recently discovered are for the treatment of certain liver disorders, Parkinson’s disease, stroke and drug dependence.

Editorial director of F1000 Biology, Kathleen Wets, met up with him last week at the British Pharmacological Society (winter) meeting. Here he talks to Kathleen about his award-winning research on cannabinoids:

We’re focusing particularly on a compound called cannabidiol and on another compound called tetrahydrocannabivarin, or THCV, which has interesting properties because it can target the same receptors that are targeted by our endogenous cannabinoids but in a slightly different way. It blocks one set of these receptors but activates the other set, and that could be very important for treating disorders like liver diseases and so on.

Pertwee recently evaluated an article for F1000 which also investigated cannabinoid receptors in the brain of mice. The article strongly supports the involvement of these receptors in cocaine’s effects on brain function and identified a likely role for these receptors in the pharmacotherapy of drug abuse and addiction. Read the evaluation here.

See more of Roger Pertwee’s evaluations.