Lindsay H. Burns (born 1965) is an American neuroscientist and rower who won a

silver medal A silver medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc ...

at the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

. She was a senior vice president of the pharmaceutical company Cassava Sciences until July 2024 and married to its CEO Remi Barbier. As of July 2022, Cassava Sciences and papers co-authored by Burns were under investigation; co-author Hoau-Yan Wang was indicted for fraud in 2024 and Cassava denies any wrongdoing. Burns and her husband, Remi Barbier (president and chief executive officer of Cassava) abruptly resigned in 2024 following Wang's indictment.

Personal life

Burns was born in 1965 and raised in Big Timber, Montana. She graduated from Harvard University in 1987. In 1991, she obtained a PhD in neuroscience from University of Cambridge on a thesis titled ''Functional interactions of limbic afferents to the striatum and mesolimbic dopamine in reward-related processes'', which was supervised by Barry Everitt and

Trevor Robbins Trevor William Robbins CBE FRS FMedSci is a Professor of cognitive neuroscience and former Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Robbins interests are in the fields of cognitive neuroscience, behavioural neuros ...

. Burns worked as a research fellow in psychobiology at

McLean Hospital McLean Hospital () (formerly known as Somerville Asylum and Charlestown Asylum) is a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. It is noted for its clinical staff expertise and neuroscience research and is also known for the large number of ...

in Belmont, Massachusetts. She joined Cassava Sciences in 2002 and became senior vice president of neuroscience in 2021. Burns is married to Remi Barbier, the former CEO and founder of Cassava Sciences.

Rowing career

Burns started competitive rowing soon after entering Harvard. In 1987, she rowed in the Radcliffe varsity crew and won the Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges (EAWRC) championship that awarded her the Ivy title and the EAWRC League title. She was part of the US rowing team from 1987 and from 1990 to 1996. Competing in the lightweight category at six World Rowing Championships, she won four medals: gold at the

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...

; silvers in the double in

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

and

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

; and bronze in the double in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

. She won a silver medal at the

1995 Pan American Games File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake strike ...

competing in the

quad sculls A quadruple sculling boat, often simply called a quad and abbreviated 4x, is a rowing boat used in the sport of competitive rowing. It is designed for four people who propel the boat by sculling with two oars, or "sculls", one in each hand. Rac ...

(heavyweight) category and she won the European Rowing Championships at Lucerne in 1995 with Teresa Bell. She was an alternate rower at the

1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...

in Barcelona, Spain. She teamed up again with

Teresa Bell Teresa "Tess" Bell is a fictional character from the Australian soap opera ''Neighbours'', played by Krista Vendy. She made her first screen appearance during the episode broadcast on 17 September 1999 and departed on 18 September 2001. Creation ...

at the

in Atlanta, United States, and won a silver medal in the Lightweight Double Sculls. In 2006, she was inducted into the Harvard Sports Hall of Fame. In 2016, she was inducted into the National Rowing Foundation Hall of Fame.

Scientific works

Burns's first research was on the effect of

neurokinin A Neurokinin A (NKA), formerly known as Substance K, is a neurologically active peptide translated from the pre-protachykinin gene. Neurokinin A has many excitatory effects on mammalian nervous systems and is also influential on the mammalian inflam ...

on brain functions in rats. Her first paper in 1988, written with

Ann E. Kelley Ann Elizabeth Kelley (1954–2007) was an American neuroscientist, who specialized in the neuroscience of reward and behavior. She was a professor at the University of Wisconsin. Biography Kelley was born in Milton, Massachusetts. She became i ...

, reported that neurokinin A in the ventral tegmental area modifies

dopamine Dopamine (DA, a contraction of 3,4-dihydroxyphenethylamine) is a neuromodulatory molecule that plays several important roles in cells. It is an organic compound, organic chemical of the catecholamine and phenethylamine families. Dopamine const ...

circuits to induce behavioral changes. She continued her PhD research on the role of dopamine and the limbic system. During her post-doc at

, she focused on neurodegenerative diseases, specifically, transplantation of pig

neural cells In Biology, biology, the nervous system is the Complex system, highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its Behavior, actions and Sense, sensory information by transmitting action potential, signals to and from different parts of its ...

into rat brain as a possible treatment of

Parkinson's Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

or Huntington's disease. Further research indicated possible use in humans. While working for a biotech company later acquired by Elan Pharmaceuticals, she published the effects of ziconotide in a rat model of spinal cord

ischemia Ischemia or ischaemia is a restriction in blood supply to any tissue, muscle group, or organ of the body, causing a shortage of oxygen that is needed for cellular metabolism (to keep tissue alive). Ischemia is generally caused by problems wi ...

. In 2005, she published a series of papers on Oxytrex and related research with ultra-low doses of certain (

opioid antagonists Opioids are substances that act on opioid receptors to produce morphine-like effects. Medically they are primarily used for pain relief, including anesthesia. Other medical uses include suppression of diarrhea, replacement therapy for opioid use ...

) to enhance analgesia and prevent

opioid-induced hyperalgesia Opioid-induced hyperalgesia (OIH) or opioid-induced abnormal pain sensitivity, also called paradoxical hyperalgesia, is generalized pain caused by the long-term use of opioids such as morphine, oxycodone, and methadone. OIH is not necessarily confi ...

, opioid tolerance and substance dependence. Since 2006, Burns collaborated with Hoau-Yan Wang at the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...

, who had been investigating

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

. Burns and Wang wrote that FLNA was a critical protein in enabling Abeta42's signaling through the alpha 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor to induce Alzheimer's disease pathology (the publication has an expression of concern).

FLNA, simufilam and Alzheimer's disease

In 2008, Burns, Wang and Maya Frankfurt published in '' PLOS One'' a (later retracted) finding that the opioid antagonists naloxone and naltrexone bind with ultra-high affinity to FLNA to prevent mu opioid receptor excitatory signaling. Burns and Wang published (now retracted) the binding site on FLNA and the activation of CREB by opioid receptor – Gs coupling in the same journal the next year. FLNA is a

cytoplasmic In cell biology, the cytoplasm is all of the material within a eukaryotic cell, enclosed by the cell membrane, except for the cell nucleus. The material inside the nucleus and contained within the nuclear membrane is termed the nucleoplasm. Th ...

protein that maintains normal cell shape and division. In 2010, Burns and Wang announced a novel

analgesic An analgesic drug, also called simply an analgesic (American English), analgaesic (British English), pain reliever, or painkiller, is any member of the group of drugs used to achieve relief from pain (that is, analgesia or pain management). It ...

" which they named PTI-609 (PTI for Pain Therapeutics, Inc., the former name of Cassava Sciences) and stated that the molecule binds to FLNA as well as activating mu opioid receptors. In 2012, they published in '' The Journal of Neuroscience'' (now with an expression of concern) a novel compound PTI-125 that binds to FLNA similarly to naloxone and naltrexone. With PTI-125, they stated that FLNA aberrantly links to the alpha 7 nicotinic receptor, enabling signaling of Abeta42 to hyperphosphorylate tau. In 2017, they stated in ''

Neurobiology of Aging ''Neurobiology of Aging'' is a peer-reviewed monthly scientific journal published by Elsevier. The editor-in-chief is Peter R. Rapp. ''Neurobiology of Aging'' publishes research in which the primary emphasis addresses the mechanisms of nervous ...

'' (now with an expression of concern) that the FLNA in Alzheimer's disease transgenic mice and human postmortem brain tissue has an altered conformation (based on a shift in isoelectric focusing) and that PTI-125 binding to altered FLNA restores its normal shape, thereby reducing tau hyperphosphorylation, amyloid deposits and tau-containing lesions in the brains of the mice. The United States Adopted Names (USAN) gave the drug name for PTI-125 as simufilam in 2020; as of 2022, it is in

Phase III clinical trials The phases of clinical research are the stages in which scientists conduct experiments with a health intervention to obtain sufficient evidence for a process considered effective as a medical treatment. For drug development, the clinical phases ...

Research controversies

In June 2024, Wang was indicted by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) for fraud and charged with falsifying data on $16 million in grant applications to the NIH related to the Alzheimer's drug in development, simufilam. As of July 2022, Cassava Sciences and papers published by Burns and Wang were under investigation by the DOJ; Cassava denies any wrongdoing. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), and

(CUNY) were also investigating allegations of manipulated data. In October 2023, CUNY reported that they could obtain none of Wang's original data. According to ''The Wall Street Journal'', the CUNY report stated that Burns shared with Wang some responsibility "for errors and misconduct".

References

External links

* *
Profile at Cassava Sciences
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burns, Lindsay 1965 births Living people Rowers at the 1996 Summer Olympics Olympic silver medalists for the United States in rowing American female rowers Harvard University alumni World Rowing Championships medalists for the United States Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics People from Big Timber, Montana Alumni of the University of Cambridge Rowers at the 1995 Pan American Games Medalists at the 1995 Pan American Games Pan American Games bronze medalists for the United States in rowing 20th-century American sportswomen Medical scandals Harvard Crimson women's rowers