Laboratory for Aging and Age-Related Neurodegenerative Diseases

Head of the laboratory: Prof. Dr. Norbert Dencher
Laboratory for Aging and Age-Related Neurodegenerative Diseases

About Lab

Our laboratory has been recently established to elucidate on the molecular level the mechanisms of aging and of age-related neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s (AD) and Parkinson’s disease. The current focus is on AD and its association with age, since the highest risk factor for AD is age. One promising approach links structural and dynamic properties of the different membrane systems of cells to physiology, pathology, and performance of organisms. The knowledge gathered will lead to strategies for healthy aging and for the design of therapeutic tools.

The combination of advanced biochemical and biophysical techniques will contribute to our understanding of the pathology of neurodegenerative diseases as well as being a clue for early diagnosis, therapy, and prevention. Interaction of amyloid beta peptides (Aβ), monomers/oligomers triggering AD, with biological membranes, e.g., their association with membrane proteins and lipids, is studied in detail because it results in significant impacts on cellular function and neurotoxicity. We also address the important question: what is the difference between Aβ interaction with cells and their membranes/organelles in the ‘young’ and ‘old’ state.

The lab of Prof. Dencher at MIPT, in tight cooperation with Prof. Willbold (Forschungszentrum Jülich and Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany), collects structural information of the most toxic Aβ oligomer species and any assemblies relevant for their formation or conversion into Aβ fibrils. We expect that these studies will deliver the first high resolution structural details of the Aβ species that are responsible for development and progression of AD. This binational cooperation also gives us the opportunity to transfer basic scientific results to biomedical application (in diagnosis and therapy), as well as to clinical research, also to attract external investments to achieve our tasks.

At MIPT we are applying a variety of biochemical, biophysical and cell-biological techniques to evolutionary distant organisms as well as to model systems, especially to their membranes, to answer pertinent questions in aging research: why and how do we age; which factors and mechanisms affect life-expectancy, life-span, and health-span; how can we prolong life-span and especially health-span; does nutrition influence health- and life-span, and by which mechanisms; what is the common biology of aging and the age-associated diseases Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Dementia.

Main Lab Members

Ivan Okhrimenko

Ivan Okhrimenko

Head of Laboratory

Prof. Dr. Lev Yaguzhinskiy

Prof. Dr. Lev Yaguzhinskiy

Principal Researcher

Dr. Yulia Zagryadskaya

Dr. Yulia Zagryadskaya

Senior Researcher

Dr. Nikolay Ilinsky

Dr. Nikolay Ilinsky

Senior Researcher

Dr. Anna Kamynina

Dr. Anna Kamynina

Senior Researcher

Dr. Eduard Bocharov

Dr. Eduard Bocharov

Senior Researcher

Plashchinskaia Darja

Plashchinskaia Darja

Student


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