Maciej Stawikowski
Florida Atlantic University, FL·Chemistry
Cholesterol is essential for cells to work and survive. When cells cannot keep their cholesterol in balance, the problem is linked to Parkinson's, Huntington's and Alzheimer's disease (AD).
- Fields
Chemistry
Neuroscience
Biochemistry
- Topics
cholesterol trafficking
cholesterol homeostasis
fluorescent probes
- Grants
- 1 known grant, last ended Aug 2026
What they work on
- Design and synthesize environment-sensitive fluorescent cholesterol probes (CNDs) built on a 1,8-naphthalimide dye, using computational chemistry to tune their properties for different imaging uses.
- Map how CND probes are taken up and spread among organelles such as endosomes, lysosomes and lipid droplets in fibroblasts, astrocytes and neurons, using high-resolution live-cell imaging.
- Test whether CNDs mimic natural cholesterol by disrupting proteins that take up, transport and store cholesterol, then checking how probe staining changes.
- Combine CNDs with colored reporters for synaptic vesicles and amyloid precursor protein (APP) to ask how membrane cholesterol and APP cleavage affect each other, using transgenic and drug approaches.
More about the research
In Alzheimer's, cholesterol affects how amyloid precursor protein (APP) is moved and cut, and it worsens clumping of the amyloid-beta and Tau proteins. Cholesterol in cell membranes can also disrupt synapses, the junctions where nerve cells communicate. A growing number of reports suggest that where cholesterol sits inside the cell is controlled locally, by transport between compartments, rather than only by overall cholesterol production. Watching this transport in living cells requires fluorescent probes that behave like cholesterol and can tell the outer membrane apart from internal compartments.
Why it matters
Cholesterol has long been tied to Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases, but its exact role is unclear. A toolbox of fluorescent cholesterol probes could let researchers watch cholesterol move inside living brain cells. This could clarify how faulty cholesterol transport contributes to synapse damage and neuron loss, and it may inform future work on Alzheimer's disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Dibyadeep Datta
Yale University, CT·Neuroscience
Define the spatial relationship between pT217Tau, an early blood and spinal fluid marker of Alzheimer's, endosome enlargement and APP/Aβ42 in postmortem human brains across Braak stages, using quantitative immunofluorescence in vulnerable and resistant cortical regions.
Haiying Liu
Michigan Technological University, MI·Chemistry
Design and synthesize near-infrared BODIPY dye probes that emit two colors whose ratio reports viscosity, with improved water solubility, stability and ability to enter cells.
Gregory Petsko
Columbia University, NY·Biochemistry
Measure how disease-linked SORL1 mutations affect pairing of SORL1 proteins, binding to the retromer sorting complex and binding to APP, the amyloid precursor protein, using biochemical assays.
The school
Florida Atlantic University: 7 labs on PI Pages, $88M a year on research, 124 research doctorates a year.
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