Advanced Topics in Neurodegeneration Research

Catalog description

This course will cover selective topics of general interest in the neurodegeneration field with recent rapid progresses including protein misfolding, mitochondrial dysfunction, and neuroinflammation. The purpose of the course is to provide a forum for more in-depth discussion on these topics through lectures and guided discussion on critical literature. The course is organized into three modules with one topic per module. Each module contains four-six lectures covering different aspects of the topic provided by experts in the field. The module on protein misfolding will discuss liquid-liquid phase separation and protein misfolding, structural study of misfolded proteins, co-factors involved in protein misfolding, crosstalk of misfolded proteins, protein strains and clinical phenotypes, and misfolded protein biomarkers. The module on mitochondrial dysfunction will discuss bioenergetics and mitochondrial regulation and dysregulation during the life cycle from mitochondrial biogenesis, dynamics, interaction with other organelles, proteostasis and quality control and their roles in cell physiology and pathophysiology. The module on neuroinflammation includes crosstalk between microglia, astrocytes and neurons during neural inflammation, microbiota-gut-brain-axis, immune and nervous system interactions in health and disease, blood-barrier breakdown in neurodegenerative disease, , and epidemiology, genetics and biomarkers of neuroinflammation. Through these modules, it is expected that the motivated students will be updated about the advanced knowledges and technologies of neurodegenerative diseases including but not limited to Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Prereq: PATH 444 and Graduate Student standing.