Research Projects

With increased life expectancy, there has been a critical growth in the portion of the population that suffers from age-related cognitive decline and dementia. Attempts are therefore being made to find ways to slow brain-aging processes; successful therapies would have a significant impact on the quality of life of individuals, and decrease...

The objective of CARELINK is to deliver a tracking solution that addresses the issue of wandering in People with Dementia (PwD), allowing carers to monitor PwD. Using current machine-learning technologies we will profile user routes that can then be used to build a repository of route patterns to be compared against live routes, thus allowing for...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a major contributor to disease burden and healthcare costs worldwide. AD is usually diagnosed once symptoms like memory impairment become evident. However, at this point typical AD pathology such as Aβ plaques and cell death is already widespread, suggesting that molecular changes have occurred decades before symptom...

The search for the fundamental mechanisms of learning and experience-dependent memory formation in the brain has long been a central quest in neuroscience. The neocortex is a particularly relevant region for plasticity because it is involved in sensory, motor, and cognitive tasks with strong learning components. However, despite many years of...

Maintaining the quality of all proteins in an organism is fundamental to life since it ensures tissue function, organismal health, and longevity. Protein quality control (PQC) is achieved by selective degradation of damaged proteins, limiting the formation of protein aggregates and neurodegeneration characteristic of Alzheimers, Huntingtons, and...

CLARA, the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing in System Brain Research, represents the interdisciplinary center of excellence focused on the next generation of artificial intelligence/machine learning applications and quantum-centric supercomputing tools to push the frontier of neurodegeneration research, particularly...

Neuroinformatics (NI) is now an essential approach in brain research, to organise, analyse, integrate and interpret an increasing volume of diverse, multi-dimensional, fine-grain neuroscience data. University of Ljubljana's (UL's) challenges in this field are suboptimal research management & open innovation (OI), slow pace of structural changes...

Small soluble protein aggregates play a key role in the onset and spreading of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. However, which oligomers are present in human disease and which are toxic remains unknown because ultrasensitive methods do not exist to detect and characterise the low concentration of oligomers, which are highly heterogeneous in...

Small soluble protein aggregates play a key role in the onset and spreading of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. However, which oligomers are present in human disease and which are toxic remains unknown because ultrasensitive methods do not exist to detect and characterise the low concentration of oligomers, which are highly heterogeneous...

Lipids are essential components of cell membranes. Every organelle membrane is constituted of a unique composition of different lipid species. This distinctive lipid distribution along organelle membranes is important to maintain the identity and functions of the different organelles. In this research project, I aim to understand how the lipid...

Circadian rhythm (CR) regulates body functions over the 24-hour day/night period; sleep/wake cycle is its most visible manifestation. CR disruptions have long been observed in patients with dementia and emerging evidence points to their presence in the preclinical period of dementia. This suggests that certain aspects of CR could be useful in...

Celeris Therapeutics is a deep learning company that uses innovative, in-silico methods such as geometric deep learning and graph neural networks to degrade currently undruggable targets (pathogenic proteins). The platform shall make a broad impact by addressing currently incureable diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and different types of...