Morgan Newman

Biography

To reduce the social and financial impacts of Alzheimer's Disease, preventative treatments are needed. An increased understanding of Alzheimer's Disease is essential to the development of such treatments. Despite over 60,000 publications on Alzheimer's disease, there is still intense disagreement about what actually causes the disease. We do know that the majority of inherited cases of Alzheimer's disease are caused by changes in the Presenilin gene. We know that this gene is centrally important to the functioning of cells, but we are only beginning to understand how it works. Our laboratory is unique since we use an increasingly popular system, the zebrafish. Like humans, zebrafish possess a version of the Presenilin gene. We are currently the world's leading laboratory using zebrafish to investigate genes involved in Alzheimer's Disease. Our current aim is to generate zebrafish that have changes in their Presenilin gene that is similar to what is seen in Alzheimer's Disease. These fish will be a very valuable resource for further research on Presenilin function and will help us increase our understanding of the mechanisms behind Alzheimer's Disease.

Research Interest

Medicine,Medical Education,Research,etc