Research Projects

The majority of the risk to develop Alzheimer's disease is influenced by genetic factors. We previously found that carrying a genetic mutation in the SORL1 gene can lead to a greatly increased chance of developing Alzheimer's Disease. SORL1 is involved in the production and processing of Alzheimer proteins that accumulate in the brain. e have...

Neurodegenerative disorders are one of the leading causes of disabilities and death in elderly populations worldwide. To this date, no established treatment can either prevent or slow down the progression of these diseases. Their occurrences and progression are strongly correlated with insoluble biological condensates composed of nucleic acids and...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an age-related chronic neurodegenerative disease with four main pathological changes in the brain: amyloid plaques, fibrillary tau tangles, inflammation and neuronal loss. Phagocytes around amyloid plaques in late onset AD (LOAD) may be neurotoxic but have limited motility and phagocytic activity, suggesting a...

Assemblies of tau and α-synuclein were shown to spread along interconnected neuronal networks suggesting broadly relevant therapeutic directions for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. This requires a pre-clinical stage of development that has yet to be met. The scale of neurodegenerative disease burden in Europe calls for an unprecedented...

Under PhytoAPP project it is expected to build new and enhance existing network of international and inter-sectoral cooperation in the form of joint research and innovation activities between the project Partners with multidisciplinary skills and complementary competences in nanomaterials, physics, engineering, green chemistry, biochemistry and...

The overall aim is to further the understanding of the BBB in health and disease states towards the development of innovative brain delivery systems, especially for biopharmaceuticals (e.g., peptides, antibodies, etc.) and the identification of novel disease drug targets (Alzheimer’s Disease, MS, metabolic disease).

The related key deliverables...

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is a central redox cofactor and the limiting substrate of key metabolic enzymes. The constellation of cellular functions in which NAD+ is involved makes its availability critical for cell survival, and its depletion is a leading factor in a number of diseases in humans, ranging from rare inherited defects to...

Here is proposed nano-scale synthesis and combinatorial screening of medium sized peptide-transition metal catalyst libraries with the aim of producing libraries for screening highly selective catalysts for development of nano-medicines. The implementation of catalytic molecules as medicines is a new paradigm in treatment that can overcome a number...

The search for effective therapies and early detection strategies for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), the major cause of dementia in Europe, is imperative. It is known that β-amyloid (Aβ) peptide plays a central role in neurodegeneration. In AD brain, Aβ is released in a soluble form that progressively becomes insoluble forming aggregates; extracellular...

Medical diagnosis is currently undergoing a major revolution due to the fast discovery of molecular biomarkers, and the development of multimodal “metabiomarker” signatures. Progress, however, is hindered by low abundance of many biomarkers of interest in body fluids, in absolute concentration and with regard to other biomolecules. The aim of the...

Alzheimers disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease affecting the aged population and is projected to increase 3-fold in the next 30 years. Treatment options in AD are limited due to complex pathological processes and the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which restrict entry molecules into the brain. A finding in AD is the loss of cholinergic neurons...

Protein aggregation hallmarks several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. In Parkinson's, aggregation of the intrinsically disordered protein (IDP) alpha-synuclein (Syn) leads to its intracellular deposition into Lewy bodies, which causes neuronal dysfunction. Recently it was discovered that Syn can undergo liquid...