Novel therapeutics targeting autophagy in Alzheimer's disease

Edith Cowan University, Australia

Updated: 9 months ago
Location: Mount Lawley, WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Deadline: ;

Project Outline:

The Alzheimer's disease (AD) brain is characterized by accumulation of aggregated beta amyloid (AB) in neurons. A systemic failure to clean up the toxic (AB) protein aggregates is a major cause of neuronal loss and cognitive decline in AD. Our recent findings have shown that enhancing autophagy, a housekeeping pathway upregulated during starvation, removes AB aggregates and protects against toxicity. Currently, our research is targeted towards identifying protective genes and chemical modulators of autophagy that reduce AB accumulation and neuronal cell death in the AD brain.

Research Questions:

  1. What autophagy proteins are changed in AD brain and how does it correlate to AB levels?
  2. Identify potent autophagy modulators that reduce AB accumulation and_ toxicity in neuronal cells.

Project Area: Medical Science

School / Research Centre / Institute : School of Medical and Health Sciences research

Supervisor: Dr. Prashant Bharadwaj; Dr. Eugene Hone; Professor Ralph Martins

Project level: Honours, Masters, PhD

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