To understand and impact neurodegenerative diseases driven by protein-aggregates, one must understand how aggregates accumulate and how these are toxic to brain cells.

Current treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s (e.g. levodopa) only relieve symptoms and don’t stop the toxicity or reverse brain damage. We propose that by understanding the pathways leading to toxicity we may one day be able to help treat these diseases, by relieving the toxic effects.

One way in which toxicity may arise is when the ordered assemblies of proteins have different interaction partners compared to the individual monomers. We have developed methods to investigate assemblies in vitro and assemblies in cells of target proteins (α-synuclein, beta-amyloid etc). By mass spectrometry we will find the major interaction partners and study whether their sequestration may lead to toxicity.

The project will give experience in a range of biochemical technique, experiments in cultures of cell lines and neurons, and structural studies.