Julie Saugstad
Oregon Health & Science University, OR·Neuroscience
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, and doctors lack good markers to spot brain changes, identify high-risk people, or tell AD apart from Parkinson's disease (PD). Women and carriers of the APOE-e4 gene variant, the strongest genetic risk factor for common late-onset AD, are more likely to develop the disease.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
Genetics
- Topics
Alzheimer's disease
Parkinson's disease
dementia
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2028
What they work on
- Characterize the size and surface marker proteins of cerebrospinal fluid extracellular vesicles from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and control participants, comparing females vs. males and APOE-e4 vs. APOE-e3 carriers.
- Profile miRNAs and proteins carried in CSF extracellular vesicles and use the lab's Information Theory method to find feature combinations that distinguish Alzheimer's from Parkinson's and controls and flag high-risk Alzheimer's.
- Identify and verify brain gene targets of Alzheimer's-associated EV miRNAs such as miR-16-5p, including SNAP-25, a protein needed for neurotransmitter release, in postmortem human hippocampus.
More about the research
This project studies extracellular vesicles (EVs), tiny membrane packages that cells release carrying proteins and microRNAs (miRNAs, short RNA molecules that turn down other genes). It focuses on EVs found in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the fluid around the brain and spinal cord. The goal is to see whether they can serve as more reliable, disease-specific markers. In AD, EV production is disrupted, and EVs released by neurons can carry and spread the disease proteins amyloid beta and tau.
Why it matters
Alzheimer's care costs over $300 billion a year, yet markers to detect brain changes, flag high-risk groups, or distinguish Alzheimer's from Parkinson's disease are lacking. Cerebrospinal fluid vesicle biomarkers could improve diagnosis, especially for women and APOE-e4 carriers. The brain genes these vesicle miRNAs control could also become new therapeutic targets.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Joseph Quinn
Oregon Health & Science University, OR·Neuroscience
Collect and provide DNA, plasma, peripheral blood mononuclear cells and cerebrospinal fluid from healthy controls, people with mild cognitive impairment and people with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.
Ling Wu
North Carolina Central University, NC·Neuroscience
Validate newly discovered phosphorylated tau (p-tau) markers for early Alzheimer's diagnosis, including distinguishing mild cognitive impairment from normal cognition, in patient plasma and cerebrospinal fluid.
Debomoy Lahiri
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, IN·Neuroscience
Test whether miR153, a small regulatory RNA, silences predicted target sites in messenger RNAs of the REST-153 network (REST, APP, tau, IL1α, IL6), using reporter clones and protein measurements in cultured cells.
The school
Oregon Health & Science University: 24 labs on PI Pages, $545M a year on research, 54 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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