Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Aβ and tau pathology in the retina of Alzheimer’s disease patients and non-demented elderly individuals and its relation to the brain pathology" "Dietmar Thal" "Laboratory for Neuropathology, Translational Cell & Tissue Research, Animal Physiology and Neurobiology, Research Group Ophthalmology" "Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is the most common form of neurodegenerative dementia in the elderly. Its complex pathogenesis is linked to the accumulation of abnormal phosphorylated τ protein and amyloid β peptide aggregates in the central nervous system. However, between the initiation of this protein aggregation and the onset of cognitive impairment, there is a gap of more than 10 years. Given that non-demented individuals already exhibit preclinical AD-related changes in the brain, there is an urgent need for efficient methods to diagnose AD in this preclinical phase. Recently, retinal imaging of AD lesions has been put forward for early AD diagnosis. Indeed, the retina, which is considered a window to the brain, displays manifestations of AD and offers unique opportunities for in-vivo imaging. However, to clarify the diagnostic value of retinal imaging, it is essential to establish whether there is an AD-specific pattern of Aβ and p-τ pathology in the retina, distinct from other forms of retinal degeneration, that correlates with AD pathology in the brain. Therefore, I will study the distribution patterns of Aβ and p-τ in human retina samples from non-demented and demented patients. Furthermore, it is important to clarify the pathomechanisms underlying the accumulation of Aβ and p-τ pathology in the retina. These I will tackle by studying Aβ and p-τ cooperation and propagation in the retina and the visual system." "Mechanisms underlying protein tau-mediated neurodegeneration: combining transgenic mouse models and AAV vectors." "Fred Van Leuven" "Department of Human Genetics" "Fundamental and translational data from clinical and pre-clinical research in Alzheimer's dementia (AD)support the hypothesis that amyloid is the ""trigger"" both in familial and sporadic AD, but that tauopathy is the actual ""executer"". The study of the role of protein tau and of tauopathie in brain and in AD is absolutely essential, both for academic as for diagnostic and therapeutic reasons. We test the working hypothesis in this project and aim at select aspects and important questions that link physiology and pathology: (i) what is the role of GSK3alfa/beta isozymes and their activation by amyloid? (ii) what is the role of protein tau in cognition and in neuronal cell-death? (iii) what post-translational modifciation(s)of protein tau are in vivo important for normal dendritic spines & synapses? (iv) what relates Tau-mediated neurodegeneration to microglial activation? We combine transgenic and viral models, multi-disciplinary analysis and pharmacological approaches to dissect the different mechanisms that contribute to normal neuronal function and to the neuronal damage in Alzheimer's disease." "Design and developement of diagnostics and drugs for neurodegenerative, immunological and microbial diseases" "Peter Verwilst" "Medicinal Chemistry (Rega Institute)" "The research aims at two important goals:1) The development of (fluorescent) tools to visualize biomarkers in neurodegenerative diseases as research tools or diagnosticsIn this part of the work fluorescent molecules are developed and optimized. Key goals are to increase the biocompatibility, stability, specificity and (to later enable in vivo imaging applications) a suitably red-shifted fluorescence. Key biomarkers of interest are beta-amyloid and tau protein aggregates (oligomers and late-stage aggregates) as well as transiently expressed reactants leading to advanced glycation end products (e.g. methyl glyoxal).2) The design synthesis and exploration of potential small-molecule drugs for neurodegenerative and immunological diseases and antimicrobialsSynthetic exploration and elucidation of structure-activity relationship data of congeners with the aim to develop leads for drug targets. A strong emphasis lies on diseases that have an important societal need to be addressed (antimicrobial resistance, certain viruses, cancer immunotherapy adjuvants, etc.)."