Sonia Gandhi
Alma mater
Scientific career
FieldsProtein misfolding
Neurodegeneration
Parkinson's disease
Institutions
ThesisThe role of PINK1 in Parkinson's disease (2009)
Websitewww.crick.ac.uk/research/find-a-researcher/sonia-gandhi

Sonia Gandhi is a British physician and neuroscientist who leads the Francis Crick Institute neurodegeneration laboratory.[1][2] She holds a joint position at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology. Her research investigates the molecular mechanisms that give rise to Parkinson's disease. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gandhi was involved with the epidemiological investigations and testing efforts at the Francis Crick Institute.

Early life and education

Gandhi studied neuroscience at Trinity College, Cambridge, and earned her bachelor's degree in 1996.[3][4] She moved to the University of Oxford to complete a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (BM BCh) degree in medicine.[5] She was a trainee neurologist at the Hammersmith Hospital, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and Whittington Hospital. In 2004 she was awarded a Wellcome Trust fellowship to work toward a doctoral degree in neuroscience at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, and completed her PhD in 2009.[6]

Research and career

She was awarded a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) lectureship at Imperial College London in 2009.[3] In 2012 she was awarded a Wellcome Trust intermediate clinical fellowship to study the misfolding of alpha-synuclein in Parkinson's disease, and how this misfolding causes neurotoxicity.[7] Gandhi established her laboratory at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology in 2013.[8] Her research group develop human-derived induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models of disease, with a focus on understanding how the aggregation of alpha-synuclein, a protein encoded by the SNCA gene, impacts cell physiology.[8] She makes use of single-molecule FRET and mitochondrial physiology to study the behaviour of alpha-synuclein at the molecular level.[7]

In 2016 Gandhi was awarded a secondment at the Francis Crick Institute.[9] Gandhi and co-workers showed that clumps of alpha-synuclein can be toxic to neural function, damaging proteins on the surface of mitochondria.[10][11] This damage forced a channel on mitochondria to open and made them less efficient in their production of energy, causing them to swell and leak essential chemicals – eventually causing the cell to die.[10] To perform the experiments, Gandhi and colleagues turned human skin cells into stem cells, which were converted into brain cells that could be investigated into the laboratory.[10] She was part of a team who investigated the use of exenatide as a means to slow the progression of multiple system atrophy.[12] In February 2020 Gandhi was awarded a Medical Research Council (MRC) clinical fellowship to study the fundamental origins of Parkinson's disease.[13]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gandhi studied the epidemiology of coronavirus disease.[14] In particular, Gandhi was interested in how the virus evolved throughout the course of the pandemic, how it impacted the nervous system and how it was transmitted between people.[14] She was also involved with the COVID-19 testing that took place at the Francis Crick Institute.[15]

Selected publications

Gandhi's publications[1][2] include:

  • A common LRRK2 mutation in idiopathic Parkinson's disease[5]
  • Mechanism of Oxidative Stress in Neurodegeneration[16]
  • PINK1-Associated Parkinson's Disease Is Caused by Neuronal Vulnerability to Calcium-Induced Cell Death[17]

References

  1. 1 2 Sonia Gandhi publications from Europe PubMed Central
  2. 1 2 Sonia Gandhi publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  3. 1 2 "Dr Sonia Gandhi". UCL. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  4. ↑ ""The toxic consequences of protein aggregation in Parkinson's disease"". Oxford Parkinson's Disease Centre. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  5. 1 2 Gilks, William P; Abou-Sleiman, Patrick M; Gandhi, Sonia; Jain, Shushant; Singleton, Andrew; Lees, Andrew J; Shaw, Karen; Bhatia, Kailash P; Bonifati, Vincenzo; Quinn, Niall P; Lynch, John (2005). "A common LRRK2 mutation in idiopathic Parkinson's disease". The Lancet. 365 (9457): 415–416. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)17830-1. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 15680457. S2CID 36186136.
  6. ↑ "Sonia Gandhi". crick.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  7. 1 2 "Grants awarded: Intermediate Clinical Fellowships | Wellcome". wellcome.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  8. 1 2 "Sonia Gandhi, PhD". michaeljfox.org. Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  9. ↑ UCL (2020-02-21). "Dr Sonia Gandhi awarded new fellowship". ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  10. 1 2 3 "Scientists unravel molecular mechanisms of Parkinson's disease: Detailed brain cell analysis has helped researchers uncover new mechanisms thought to underlie Parkinson's disease". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  11. ↑ Institute, UK DRI: UK Dementia Research (2020-06-01). "UK DRI: UK Dementia Research…". ukdri.ac.uk. UK Dementia Research Institute. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  12. ↑ "Researchers begin trial of drug to slow progression of neurodegenerative condition Multiple System Atrophy". uclh.nhs.uk. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  13. ↑ UCL (2020-02-21). "Dr Sonia Gandhi awarded new fellowship". Brain Sciences. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  14. 1 2 "Coronavirus (COVID-19) research". crick.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  15. ↑ Hughes, Laura; Hodgson, Camilla (16 April 2020). "UK unlikely to hit 100,000-a-day virus test target, warn experts". Financial Times. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  16. ↑ Gandhi, Sonia; Abramov, Andrey Y. (2012). "Mechanism of Oxidative Stress in Neurodegeneration". Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity. 2012: 428010. doi:10.1155/2012/428010. ISSN 1942-0900. PMC 3362933. PMID 22685618.
  17. ↑ Gandhi, Sonia; Wood-Kaczmar, Alison; Yao, Zhi; Plun-Favreau, Helene; Deas, Emma; Klupsch, Kristina; Downward, Julian; Latchman, David S.; Tabrizi, Sarah J.; Wood, Nicholas W.; Duchen, Michael R. (2009-03-13). "PINK1-Associated Parkinson's Disease Is Caused by Neuronal Vulnerability to Calcium-Induced Cell Death". Molecular Cell. 33 (5): 627–638. doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2009.02.013. ISSN 1097-2765. PMC 2724101. PMID 19285945.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.