The monthly seminar talk of the MNS department for the month of October will be presented by Dr. Md. Shariful Islam, a post-doctoral research fellow in Moore’s Laboratory, Van Andel Institute, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA on Thursday the 11th October at 11:30 a.m. in room number UB 21511. The seminar details are as follows:
Seminar Title: Exploring Parkinson’s Disease: from Physics to Biology
Speaker: Dr. Shariful Islam
Date and time: 11th October (Thursday), 2018, 11:30am.
Place: UB21511 (MNS multipurpose room)
Abstract:
The fundament of many neurodegenerative disorders is linked with the misfolding and aggregation of protein in brain cells. Parkinson’s disease (PD), occur in late mid-life, is the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer’s disease. Though the correlation between aggregation of α-synuclein and Parkinson’s disease has been well proven, there are still many questions to answer about the detailed mechanisms of protein aggregation and the cause of protein misfolding. α-synuclein protein is capable of transforming from a soluble form into insoluble amyloid structure through different physiological and non-physiological conditions. In order to develop a fundamental understanding of the factors that drives this transition; it is indispensable to know about the kinetics of this process so that a kinetics study of protein fibrils growth can draw the better picture of α-synuclein proteins aggregation. In this project we have tried to overcome these drawbacks to investigate the kinetics of α-synuclein protein aggregation by using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) as a mass sensor.
Gene mutations in the leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) are the most common cause of autosomal dominant PD with pleiomorphic pathology. In this study, we generated a novel PD model Drosophila by overexpressing hLRRK2 (R1441C) in dopaminergic neurons, which replicated the essential features of Human PD including age dependent dopaminergic degeneration. To understand the disease progression and the molecular machinery associated with hLRRK2 (R1441C) pathology, the expression of entire transgenic Drosophila head proteome and phosphoproteome were characterized at different disease stages by using mass spectrometry. Taken together, this study provides dynamic and temporal proteomic changes due to over-expressed human LRRK2 (R1441C) in Drosophila melanogaster as a PD model that may shed light on the fundamental etiology of PD.
Short Biography of Dr. Islam:
Dr. Md. Shariful Islam completed his Bachelor and Master’s Degree in Physics from Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh. He has done his second masters in Applied Physics on Optics and Biophysics track at the University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands. In 2012, Dr. Islam got prestigious Marie Curie fellowship and started his PhD in Max Plank Institute for lung and heart, Bad Nauheim, Germany. His PhD topic was “Comprehensive proteome and phosphoproteome analysis of human LRRK2 R1441C Drosophila model of Parkinson's disease”.
In 2016, Dr. Islam joined in Moore’s laboratory, Van Andel Institute, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA as a post-doctoral research fellow. His current research is on elucidating the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which autosomal dominant mutations in the LRRK2 gene precipitate neuronal degeneration in PD. Dr. Islam was awarded American Parkinson’s Disease Association (APDA) post-doctoral fellowship in 2017 as an acknowledgement of his work which shown promise to provide new insights into the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.