Michael Coleman Cambridge Neuroscience webinar 31st January, 2023
Wallerian Degeneration
Elucidating the molecular mechanisms regulating the degeneration of injured axon (Wallerian degeneration) has been a long-term interest of the group. Over the past decade we have been at the forefront of identifying and characterising of a number of the key molecules involved in this process and we have begun to order them within a pathway. Our current work is primarily focussed on two central, antagonistic protein regulators of axon health, NMNAT2 and SARM1, but the ultimate aim is to characterise all the players and their relationships within the complete pathway using a variety of in vivo and cell culture models. Importantly, several neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, glaucoma, motor neuron disease, peripheral neuropathies and multiple sclerosis, likely involve activation of the same pathway and we hope our work will ultimately lead to the development of effective therapies for these disorders.