Protein homeostasis in Alzheimer’s disease: molecular basis for APP trafficking by the SNX17-Commander protein complex
Alzheimer’s disease is a debilitating neurodegenerative condition that has an enormous personal impact for people living with the disease, their families and carers. Currently, all attempts to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease have failed and treatments only temporarily mitigate its effects. New approaches that act on the underlying causes the disease are urgently needed. One approach is to develop treatments that target macromolecular assemblies (that regulate protein turnover and homeostasis) to prevent the build-up of toxic proteins and peptides in the cell. In this work, Dr Healy will characterise a relatively unknown macromolecular assembly that is involved in maintaining the homeostasis of LRP1 and APP; proteins that have been heavily implicated in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Dr Healy believes that by better understanding the fundamental biology of this system, it will be possible to develop new targeted therapies that treat the underlying causes of disease progression.
Dr Michael Healy is a postdoctoral research fellow working at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences in the lab of Professor Collins, where he investigates the structure and function of large macromolecular complexes that are involved in maintaining cellular homeostasis.