Keywords
Clinical Conditions
Equipment & Techniques
My research focuses on using multidisciplinary approaches, including biophysics, cell biology and protein engineering, to study the molecular mechanisms of protein self-assembly processes, such as biomolecular condensates and amyloid fibrils, in order to identify novel methods that may be used as therapeutic strategies against neurodegenerative diseases. We are studying the molecular mechanisms of amyloid formation and characterizing the different aggregation-prone conformers in order to understand how these species interact with biological targets to impart toxicity. Using our knowledge of the amyloid aggregation process, we are creating precision autophagy-targeting therapeutics to selectively bind neurodegenerative disease-causing proteins to facilitate their degradation. Our interest in cellular protein degradation pathways has more recently led to us exploring the use of engineered biomolecular condensates to gain mechanistic insight into how Nature utilizes phase-separation to facilitate protein degradation via autophagy.
