Lipid Dynamics and Mitochondrial Metabolism in Neurodegenerative Disease

This project addresses the intersection of mitochondrial metabolism and lipid dynamics, two traditionally distinct fields. Impairment of mitochondrial function is a shared feature of neurodegenerative diseases, and recent data has suggested links between neurodegeneration and lipid transport and metabolism. The team will use imaging and cell biology tools, reverse genetics, and metabolomics to learn more about how mitochondrial defects and metabolic perturbation caused by mutations in lipid transport proteins lead to neurodegenerative conditions, in the hopes of identifying novel biomarkers of disease progression.