Dr. Sabri received his doctoral degree in Biochemistry from the University of Bombay. He completed a post-doctoral program in Neurochemistry in the School of Medicine, Indiana University, Indianapolis. He was a Lecturer in the Department of Neurochemistry at the Institute of Neurology, University of London, and an Associate Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Neurosciences, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. He has special expertise in Biochemical Neurotoxicology, axonal transport, energy perturbation and myelination in the developing brain.

The molecular and cellular mechanism(s) of neural dysfunction by selected occupational and environmental chemicals are being investigated in experimental animals. The focus of our investigation is on g-diketone 1,2 Diacetyl-benzene (1,2-DAB), a chromogenic aromatic hydrocarbon, that reacts with e-amino groups of L-lysine and forms polymeric isoindoles with target proteins, such as neurofilament triplet proteins. Research from this laboratory has shown, for the first time, that daily administration of 1,2-DAB induces axonal swellings in the extreme proximal regions of motor and sensory nerve fibers in the anterior spinal roots and dorsal roots. Ultrastructural examination of axonal swellings reveals densely packed neurofilaments and islands of segregated microtubules, mitochondria and vesicles. Western blotting, proteomic and toxicogenomic studies are underway to identify axonal protein targets to illuminate molecular mechanism of aromatic hydrocarbon neurotoxicity.

Kim, M.S., Sabri, M.I., Miller, V.H., Kayton, R.J., Dixon, D.A. and Spencer, P.S. (2001) 1-2 Diacetylbenzene, the neurotoxic metabolite of a chromogenic aromatic organic solvent, induces proximal axonopathy. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology 177, 121-131.

Sabri, M.I., Spencer, P.S., Baggia, S. and Ludolph, A.C. (2000) Clinical manifistations of 3-nitropropionic acid and selected mitochon-drial toxins. IN: Mitochondrial Inhibitors as a tool for neurobiology, (Sanberg, P.R, Nishino, H. and Borlongan, C.V., eds.) Landes Biosciences, Georgetown, pp 1-17.