Research Projects

During this fellowship at Dublin City University (Ireland), the researcher will enhance, significantly, the clinical utility of existing traditionally used cognitive tests, particularly as it relates to the early detection and accurate diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia. Cognitive difficulties represent the hallmark of many...

Ageing is the main correlate of dementia and several other neurodegenerative diseases which currently affect more than 6 million people in Europe. Molecular understanding of these brain conditions is important for their prevention and treatment. In mice, pathological granular structures positive for periodic acid-Schiff stain have been found in the...

In all European countries, social inequalities in health remain pervasive. Much research has identified a number of social stratifiers of health while others have specified the role of the health care system in contributing to the evolution of health inequalities. However, gender, as a social relation of power between men and women, is rarely...

Expansion of a hexanucleotide repeat G4C2 in the non-coding region of chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9orf72) is the most common genetic cause for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). ALS is a fatal condition characterized by progressive motor deficits, degeneration of upper and lower motor neurons (MNs) and...

Alzheimer disease (AD) is a major health problem worldwide. New therapies require an accelerated translation of genetic information into mechanistic insights. Given limitations of rodent models, fully humanized models are needed to capture the complexity of the disease process. Human stem cells (iPS) provide great possibilities but are largely...

Although mass spectrometry has brought about major advancements in proteomics in the last decade, protein mass spectrometers still have important limitations. One fundamental limitation is that they require sample ionization, desorption into the gas phase and fragmentation, clearly leading to protein denaturation. Since relevant protein complexes...

Devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and various cancers are still without cures, continue to undermine the quality of life for millions of people and impose significant economic burdens. Misfolded toxic proteins constitute the microscopic basis of these diseases, but little is understood about their structure and biological...

Complexity of living matter currently poses the most significant barrier to modern in-vivo microscopy. Fuelled by various branches of life sciences, the race is now to increase the penetration depth of super-resolution imaging inside living organisms. Additionally, no high-resolution in-vivo imaging technique has ever been introduced into medical...

How can we understand one another? Our everyday conversations appear to revolve around our linguistic abilities. But creating mutual understanding involves more than formulating grammatically correct sentences. Recently, cognitive science has shown that mutual understanding relies on shared knowledge and beliefs, conceptual knowledge that is...

The RECAGE project will tackle one of the most challenging problem arising during the clinical course of dementia: the so-called Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD). The current state-of-the-art of the treatment of these symptoms is still unsatisfactory and there are many unmet needs in this area. The major objective of the...

I propose to test how hyper-anxiety in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients is caused by neurodegeneration in the amygdala, our 'center of fear', by comparing with a unique group of Urbach Wiethe disease (UWD) patients with bilateral neurodegeneration of the amygdala (BLA) for which I also construct an animal model. UWD is caused by a very rare...

There are many efforts at European level to improve our ability to monitor health and to prevent, detect, treat and manage disease so that active and healthy ageing can be promoted. In this project, breakthrough research and radical innovation on new services for integrated care is achieved by means of an efficient and cost-effective service...