Ronald Tjalkens
Colorado State University-Fort Collins, CO·Neuroscience
Parkinson's disease (PD), a movement disorder, is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's disease (AD). Beyond age and genes, exposures such as pesticides, heavy metals, bacteria and viruses raise PD risk.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
Parkinson's disease
Alzheimer's disease
neurodegeneration
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2031
What they work on
- Determine how developmental exposure to environmental neurotoxins changes innate immune signaling in glial cells, altering the brain's inflammatory response to later toxic exposures during aging, using long-term studies in transgenic models.
- Identify key molecular pathways in glial cells, altered by exposure to environmental neurotoxicants such as pesticides and heavy metals, that regulate the brain's inflammatory response to viral infection.
- Map molecular signatures of glial activation states in different brain regions across disease progression triggered by toxicants and viruses, using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, high-content imaging and neural network-based analysis.
More about the research
How these exposures add up over a lifetime to trigger disease is largely unknown. One early step appears to be inflammation driven by glial cells, the brain's support and immune cells.
Why it matters
Many people are exposed to pesticides, heavy metals and infections that raise risk for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. Identifying the glial signaling pathways that convert these exposures into brain inflammation could reveal molecular targets for slowing disease before symptoms appear. It could also clarify which combinations of exposures matter most.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Diane Re
Columbia University, NY·Neuroscience
Measure levels of potentially neurotoxic metals such as manganese, nickel, chromium and lead in aerosol from several popular e-cigarettes run under different conditions and with e-liquids that differ in flavor and nicotine content.
Michelle A Ozbun
University of New Mexico, NM·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how MEK inhibition changes the built-in antiviral responses of keratinocytes in MmuPV1-infected mouse tumors and HPV-infected raft cultures, using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics.
Jennifer Freeman
Purdue University, IN·Neuroscience
Compare the immediate effects of developmental exposure to legacy PFOA and replacement PFAS (PFBA, GenX) on dopamine neurons, using zebrafish and human iPSC-derived dopamine neurons.
The school
Colorado State University-Fort Collins: 23 labs on PI Pages, $466M a year on research, 276 research doctorates a year.
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