My group is interested in understanding the effect of environmental stress, including oxidative stress, on the progress of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Our aim is to identify novel therapeutic targets to protect neurons and their synaptic connectivity from such stress insults. For this purpose we use human iPSC derived neurons as in vitro disease models in genetic screening assays. We have gained extensive experience in gene editing and in genetic screening using CRISPR-Cas9 pooled and arrayed sgRNA libraries. We believe that these assays will further our understanding of neuronal vulnerability in neurodegeneration.
