We are interested in the fundamental mechanisms of neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. Over the past century-plus, research has revealed specific proteins that misfold and are deposited in neurodegeneration, and recent discoveries have identified other molecular and cellular actors that seem to play a role in the development and progression of disease. However, despite these advances, disease-modifying therapies are limited. 

To address this gap, we are examining neurodegeneration from new perspectives and making use of new technologies in our research. We study the genomic changes (somatic mutations) that occur in brain cells during aging and disease. We examine how somatic mutations are created and what they can teach us about disease at the level of individual cells. Our research utilizes interdisciplinary approaches, including neurodegenerative disease biology, genomics, neuropathology, molecular biology, neuroscience, and computational biology. Our methods include the isolation of single cells, amplification of the genomes, single-cell genome sequencing, and analysis of the patterns found in each cell’s genome. One major interest of the lab is innovating new methods for single-cell biology based on single-cell cytopathology, and innovating the molecular biology of single-cell genome amplification. With these new approaches, we are interrogating how individual cells experience aging and neurodegeneration, directly from human tissue. We hope to use this knowledge to contribute to the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for neurodegeneration.