Lab News
Congratulations to Tessa Sinnige on her appointment as an Assistant Professor with the Bijvoet Centre for Biomolecular Research at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
Congratulations are also in order to Tessa Sinnige for her paper, Kinetic analysis reveals that independent nucleation events determine the progression of polyglutamine aggregation in C. elegans, published in the March 16, 2021 issue of PNAS.
Congratulations to Ambre Sala for her March 2020 publication,
Embryo integrity regulates maternal proteostasis and stress resilience in Genes & Development.
Evanston Township High School senior named semifinalist in prestigious science competition
February 2021
Congratulations to Kyoko Kohno, senior Neuroscience and Piano Performance double major, who was a awarded an Advanced AYURG for her work on understanding the mechanism of candidate BET inhibitors and HDAC inhibitors by improving the cytosolic protein folding environment.
November 2020
Congratulations to Eirene Fithian, junior Biology major, who was awarded an AYURG for her work on generating tyrosine receptor-based SNAP-Tag probes that could be used to quantify clathrin-mediated endocytosis and protein aggregation.
We study the regulation of the heat shock response and the function of molecular chaperones to maintain the functional health of the proteome and lifespan. Our current interests are: to understand how different tissues in C. elegans sense diverse forms of environmental and physiological stress and communicate proteotoxic stress signals between tissues, to determine the mechanism by which proteostasis collapse occurs in aging, to establish genetic and small molecule approaches to reset the heat shock response and other cell responses that fail in aging and disease, and to prevent proteotoxic stress in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, ALS and other protein folding disorders.
The Proteostasis Network
The PN regulates protein synthesis, folding, transport and degradation of all proteins to ensure their stability and function. We study the properties and regulation of the PN, which at the organismal level in C. elegans protects cells and tissues against proteotoxic damage to ensure healthy aging and longevity.
Aging Biology
The PN regulates protein synthesis, folding, transport and degradation of all proteins to ensure their stability and function. We study the properties and regulation of the PN, which at the organismal level in C. elegans protects cells and tissues against proteotoxic damage to ensure healthy aging and longevity.
Proteostasis in Neurodegenerative Diseases
Alzheimer's disease, ALS, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases are all associated with age-dependent protein aggregation and cellular dysfunction. We use C. elegans as a system to discover how these protein misfolding diseases interfere with cellular function and patient derived induced neurons to understand how the properties of the PN are affected in disease.