Thomas Kukar, PhD


Our lab studies the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases to guide development of novel therapeutics. We focus on Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The goal of my laboratory is to develop new strategies to treat neurodegenerative diseases. We aim to understand the pathogenesis of these diseases by deciphering their molecular causes in order to identify new drug targets and ultimately therapeutic compounds. We use a multidisciplinary approach ranging from cell culture, chemical biology, high-throughput screening, animal models, human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs), clinical samples, to proteomics.
3) Defining novel pathogenic mechanisms and therapeutic targets of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We are applying an approach called substrate-targeting to mimic protective APP mutations and thus prevent beta-secretase enzyme cleavage of APP, which ultimately reduces production of the neurotoxic β-amyloid (Aβ) peptide.