Research Projects

Inflammasomes are cytosolic multi-protein complexes that form in response to a wide range of pathogens, tissue damage, and other harmful stimuli. Members of the family of NOD-like receptors (NLRs) sense these pathogen and danger associated molecular patterns, triggering innate immune responses. NLRP3 is a well-studied NLR whose activation by a...

In recent years, it has been demonstrated that sleep not only plays a crucial role in cognitive, emotional, and immunological functions but also helps to clear the brain from metabolic waste products via the recently discovered glymphatic system. A physiological marker closely associated with glymphatic clearance is electroencephalographic (EEG)...

European population is rapidly aging. While it was commonly believed that brain aging leads to neuronal loss, recent studies found that instead the volume of white matter (WM) decreases and WM lesions develop with age. WM degeneration is also a hallmark of multiple neurological disorders including Alzheimers disease or multiple sclerosis...

Multiple human diseases ranging from neurodegenerative disorders (such as Alzheimer´s disease) to cancer have been found to be linked with biomolecular mechanical properties change (phase transitions PTs). While these diseases have impacted many human beings (50 million for only AD), the causes of most of these diseases are still mysterious, and...

FERROptosis inhibitors for NEUROdegenerative disorders (NeuroFerro) will focus on the development of potent compounds with improved pharmacokinetic properties, including blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability for future application in the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders. Ferroptosis is non-apoptotic programmed cell death that has been...

The goal of Project RELIEVE is to build the very first non-invasive effective closed-loop monitoring and intervention system for brain-related disorders. The outcomes can be used to treat or manage various psychiatric and neurological disorders. We do this by pushing the technological boundaries in two separate domains. (1) AI domain: We develop a...

Critical to our understanding of Alzheimers disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative dementias (NDDs), as well as to finding disease-modifying therapies, is the development of biomarkers for the underlying disease processes. To facilitate improved diagnostics and drug discovery, we have developed methods to measure markers of amyloid and tau...

Since Alzheimer disease (AD) affects up to 50% of individuals above 85, we will witness the three-fold increase in the number of patients by 2050 if no efficient therapy will be found. The FLORIN offers non-invasive real-time monitoring of key mechanisms involved in the AD pathogenesis by avant-garde bioimaging at temporal resolution less than 1...

Over half of Parkinson Disease patients develop cortical dysfunctions leading to Parkinson Disease Dementia (PDD). The cognitive changes are primarily driven by pathological alpha-synuclein (a-syn) protein aggregates with secondary synaptic dysfunctions in the cortex. Microglia plays a key role in synapse maintenance and clearance of aggregated a...

The increased prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in our ageing society constitutes an urgent, far-reaching public health concern. In the worldwide effort to identify leverage points to prevent or delay the onset of AD, sleep has recently emerged as a potent modifiable factor to slow down the hallmark pathophysiological processes of the disease...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent deadly neurodegenerative disorder for which no effective treatment exists as of today. Therefore, there is an urgent need to better understand the molecular mechanisms behind AD in order to develop more effective treatments against this complex disease. Recent genetic findings have highlighted several...

The recent advent of therapeutic Aβ-antibodies has validated amyloid plaques as drug targets in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). They remain expensive, prone to side effects, and clinical benefit is limited. The field needs a safe and cheap drug, preferably a small compound that can be taken orally, and in a preventative way before brain damage has...