Neurodegeneration in Altzheimer’s disease

Project leader: Dr Simon Vann Jones, Academic Clinical Fellow

Simon is working with a drosophila model of neurodegeneration that may provide clues into ways of ameliorating a variety of chronic neurological diseases including the dementias.

The research involves overexpressing innate immunity, resulting in significant neurodegeneration, mid-life behavioural change and accelerated mortality.

This change mimics the inflammatory cascade that is so devastating in many neurological diseases, but Simon is particularly interested on its influence in causing and accelerating decline in Alzheimer’s disease.

The research group are using a combination of environmental modifiers in an attempt to rescue the phenotype, to unpick the mechanisms by which different interventions may be neuroprotective and ultimately to try to establish superior therapies that may protect neurons and glia from degenerative change.

June 2015