Thakur Neurodegeneration Lab 

With increase in average life span of humans, age associated neurodegenerative diseases are on rapid rise. Parkinson’s disease (PD), a progressive debilitating movement disorder, is one of the most common age associated neurodegenerative disease. PD is characterized by progressive degeneration of dopaminergic neurons (DA-neurons) in the substantia nigra (SN) region of the brain resulting in dopamine deficiency. Due to this, patients suffer from several motor symptoms such as tremor, rigidity, inability to initiate movements, impaired posture and balance, all of which result in decreased quality of life. Despite of being known to modern medicine for last 200 years, till date there is no cure for PD.  This problem is compounded by lack of complete understanding of disease pathogenesis and inability of presently available animal models to accurately mimic key disease features.

Major research projects in the lab focus on

a) Developing better mouse models of PD and utilizing them to decipher the disease mechanisms

b) Developing therapeutics and neuroprotective agents for PD

c) Understand the impact of metabolic disturbances, such as Diabetes, on PD

d) Impact of cell biological processes such as lipid alterations, post-translational modifications, neuroinflammation on PD progression

While no approaches are out of bound to achieve these goals, core experimental tools used in the lab are stereotaxic surgery, behavioral analysis, histology, and molecular biology. We are also expanding into machine learning, AI and data science. We are actively recruiting students with inclination in this area.