Jena. Aging is a recognized risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases in humans. In his lecture, Christian Behl, neurobiologist at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, will discuss efforts to understand neurodegeneration, with a particular focus on Alzheimer's disease. He will show which Alzheimer's hypotheses have been developed over the decades, which of them have prevailed and which are no longer valid today.
His aim is to expand research efforts with a view to effective prevention and therapy or a future cure by investigating additional signaling pathways and their mechanistic link to neurodegeneration in more detail. New approaches to this could be autophagy pathways, in particular aggrephagy. This is driven by the HSP70 co-chaperone BAG3, an anti-apoptotic (preventing programmed cell death) protein. Another approach is to investigate the adaptability and development of resistance of neuronal cells to disease-relevant challenges such as oxidative and ER stress (in the endoplasmic reticulum).
Christian Behl, PhD, is Director of the, where he has been a full professor and chair since 2002. His long-standing interest in neurodegenerative diseases has led to a research focus on autophagy, proteostasis and oxidative stress in the context of age-related neurodegeneration. One of his most important research goals is to uncover molecular mechanisms in neurons in the resistance to neurodegenerative diseases.
Christian Behl is deputy spokesperson of the Collaborative Research Center 1177 on "Selective Autophagy" (spokesperson: Ivan Dikic) and also a member of several scientific committees, including the German Alzheimer's Foundation.
| Title of Talk: | Increasing importance of selective autophagy and adaptation in neurodegeneration |
| When: | Thursday, February 1, 2024, 3:00 pm |
| Where: | Seminar room “Nucleus”, main building (FLI 1), Beutenbergstraße 11, Jena |
| Host: | Helen Morrison (Group leader Nerve regeneration) |
The colloquium will be a hybrid event. Details for accessing the session will be provided before the colloquium takes place. For external guests: Please contact Ivonne.Roeppnack-Jahnke@leibniz-fli.de for details.
