Pudding Seminar: Karinder Brar (PhD, UK Dementia Institute), Mechanisms to Medicines in Neurodegeneration

Dementias such as Alzheimer’s effect 55 million people worldwide and with an ageing global population this number is set to increase in the coming decades. Currently, there is no cure for any of these diseases, with treatments only being given to improve symptoms. Our lab focuses on understanding a common stress response that is overactivated in many neurodegenerative diseases and contributes to disease progression. Further understanding of this response has given us key insight and new drug targets. We have developed a biophysical sensor allowing us to monitor stress response activation. This sensor can now go on to be used in high-throughput drug screening assays to hopefully find a drug that inhibits the stress response and therefore would provide neuroprotection across a spectrum of neurodegenerative diseases.

Karinder is a fourth year PhD student in Giovanna Mallucci’s lab based in the UK Dementia Research Institute interested in understanding the common underlying biological mechanisms that cause neurodegenerative diseases to discover new drug targets. She completed her undergraduate degree in her hometown of Southampton, where she studied biomedical sciences. She then moved to UCL to complete her Master of Research in neuroscience.

All staff, students, and senior members are very warmly invited to attend the Pudding Seminars. Talks usually last between 20-25 minutes, followed by time for questions, comments and discussion before we finish at 1.50pm, to allow people to get to 2pm appointments. Please note that coffee and cake will be available from 1 o’clock with the seminar starting promptly at 1.15pm. Details of all our seminars can be found at: https://www.newn.cam.ac.uk/research/pudding-seminars/forthcoming-pudding-seminars/