Dave Schubert is taking a different approach to finding drugs for neurodegenerative disorders. Many labs and companies focus on the molecules that cause the diseases and then develop targeted drugs that turn these molecules on or off. Members of the Schubert lab, however, have created a way to screen many chemical compounds for their ability to prevent the type of nerve cell death that is found in the aging human brain. Using assays developed by Schubert, the researchers can sift through thousands of possible drugs and pick out those that show potential to protect or help recover brain cells without having to pick a specific, predetermined drug target.