Brain Health
Section Lead: Professor Peter McCaffery
This section focuses on understanding the mechanisms that maintain normal brain function as well as the consequences of their breakdown. The group studies malfunction from birth into older age -- neurodevelopmental diseases such as autism, fragile X and Tourette and neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and motor neuron disease.
Cutting edge molecular, cellular, and genetic tools are applied to explore diverse aspects ranging from brain formation to behaviour and ageing, in particular learning and memory, with a strong emphasis on data robustness and reproducibility.
From the study of the molecular pathways, control of gene transcription or protein translation, assembly of protein into cell superstructures or protein breakdown, the group is actively using this information to design new therapeutics, in particular for diseases of neurodegeneration.
Dr Daniel Berg The Berg lab is interested the neural stem cells in the developing and adult brain. We are developing new technologies to study how these cells are regulated under normal and pathological conditions.
Dr Charlie Harrington Dr Harrington leads a group focused on neurodegenerative diseases. They have various drug discovery projects aimed at treating Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia and other disorders as well as being interested in the diagnosis of these diseases.
Dr Emilie Hollville The Hollville lab is studying the signalling hubs that are affected in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders with a special focus on ubiquitin pathways. The goal of our research is to establish the causal disease mechanisms for genetic risk factors of neurological disorders.
Dr Eunchai Kang The research in Kang's lab focused on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neuroimmune interactions during the neurodevelopment and pathogenesis of neurological disorders using the human iPSCs-derived brain organoids system.
Professor Peter McCaffery The McCaffery lab focuses on the vitamin A and retinoic acid signalling system in the developing and adult brain and how its disruption may lead to diseases as diverse as schizophrenia and motor neuron disease. Through collaborative research we are exploring the application of retinoic acid receptor targeted drugs on motor neuron and other degenerative diseases.
Professor Bettina Platt Our research employs a wide range of experimental approaches to explore mechanisms and causes of neurodegeneration, with a focus on aging as well as environmental and dietary risk factors.
Professor Gernot Riedel The Riedel lab has two main fields if interest: One focus is research on memory, how to learn, how we memorise, and how and why we forget. Related to this work is our interest in diseases of memory, like dementia, its underlying mechanisms, and possible means of treatment. The second focus is on ways to increase data robustness and reproducibility of results across laboratories in different countries.
Professor Claude Wischik The Wischik lab is focused on the understanding of the causes of Alzheimer's Disease and development of new therapeutic interventions based on the abnormal function of the tau neuronal protein.
