Webinar on Neurodegeneration

Parkinson’s Disease is the fastest growing neurological disorder with more than 12 million people worldwide to be expected living with this disease by 2040. Similar to other neurodegenerative diseases, PD is hallmarked by the accumulation of proteins, thereby forming insoluble amyloid fibrils. Since neurodegenerative toxicity originates from the conformational intermediates formed along the aggregation pathway, our goal is to understand the complex mechanism of amyloid-forming polypeptides at the molecular level. However, at this point there are no analytical method which allows us to resolve this complexity and to probe the early-stages of the aggregation process. That is why, we are developing new methodologies which are able to identify, track and structurally characterize key species present in any heterogenous sample at each point in time. This technology will also be ideal to screen potential aggregation inhibitors to stop or direct the self-assembly process. A novel holistic inhibitor screening workflow combining C. Elegans and our developed analytical platform is currently been set-up. Here, I will present how we use our analytical chemistry developments to address these aspects related to Parkinson’s disease and how these tools can even be used to separate and identify unique chemical signatures of sebum for the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.