Department of Zoology

 

Neurobiology

Maria E. Giannakou

Alzheimer's Research UK Research Fellow

Email: meg37@cam.ac.uk

Tel.: +44 (0)1223 336602

Investigating Ageing and Alzheimer's Disease interactions using Drosophila

Ageing is the highest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other dementias. AD is a progressive neurodegenerative disease, characterised by neuronal and synaptic loss resulting in cognitive impairment and a gradual loss of memory, language skills and reasoning leading to dementia and finally death. AD is characterised by the presence of two pathologies, extracellular plaques (primarily accumulations of a peptide called amyloid b) and intracellular tangles (accumulations of hyperphosphorylated tau protein).

Ageing is an evolutionarily conserved process and various pathways have been described which determine lifespan. Manipulation of these pathways has been shown to delay ageing and also delay the onset of neurodegenerative diseases.

AD is modelled in the fruitfly Drosophila by expressing the amyloid beta peptide as a secreted protein from the neurons of the fly and this leads to progressive accumulation of this peptide, a decline in climbing ability and finally death, recapitulating many of the features of the human disease.

I am interested in understanding why ageing is the main risk factor for AD and specifically what changes in the brains of older individuals that makes them more susceptible to disease.

More specifically I am:

  • Using a systems biology approach to investigate the expression of genes in AD and control flies and identify processes changing in AD and ageing
  • Developing an inducible system for AD onset at various adult ages
  • Investigating the effect of manipulating processes which decline with age on AD onset
  • Investigating the effect of manipulating ageing pathways on the onset and progression of AD 

Selected publications

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