Metabolites: The key to treating Alzheimer’s?

External Event - 24th Apr 2023

Metabolites are small molecules that grow within cells and tissues in single and multicellular organisms, influencing protein structure and function to maintain life.

These molecules are sensitive to shifts in the whole organism, and environmental stressors, such as calorie restriction, exercise, microbes, osmotic stress, and atmospheric pressure can alter the levels of metabolites and cause changes at the molecular level in a cell.

At times, metabolic dysregulation, due to these fluctuations in the levels of metabolites, may underlie disease. Join Priyanka Joshi as she delves deeper into the biology of metabolite and protein homeostasis to show how metabolites function and cause dysfunction, with potential implications for aging, neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, and long-COVID.

Event type

This is a theatre event for an adult audience, where the speakers and audience are together in our Theatre.

This event will not be livestreamed.

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About Priyanka Joshi

Image credit: IBT

Priyanka Joshi is a Research Fellow and Lecturer at University of California Berkeley, where she is studying the mechanisms of calorie restriction-mediated lifespan and healthspan extension. Her research interests combine the biophysics of protein aggregation with metabolism and aging to identify the molecular underpinnings of healthy aging and age-related neurodegenerative diseases. Previously, she was the Everitt Butterfield Research Fellow at Downing College, University of Cambridge and an independent postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Misfolding Diseases in the University of Cambridge with Late Sir Professor Christopher Dobson and Prof Michele Vendruscolo. 

At Cambridge, her work elaborated on the role of metabolites in the aggregation of Alzheimer’s disease-associated amyloid-beta, and broadly on linking metabolite homeostasis with protein homeostasis. For her PhD work on designing a small molecule library to target intrinsically disordered proteins in neurodegenerative diseases, she was listed in Forbes 30 under 30 Science and Healthcare Europe in 2018 and 25 most influential women in Britain by British Vogue. She is also the Founding Team member and Chief Scientific Officer of NeuroAge Therapeutics, a pharmatech company that is targeting brain aging to reverse neurodegenerative diseases. Outside of research, she actively mentors and is involved in a range of outreach activities with school children and older adults in India, Africa, UK and USA.

Timing

Doors to the theatre will open at 6.30pm. The event will begin at 7.00pm.

Accessibility

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Our theatre is equipped with an Audio Induction Loop. 

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