Dr Janet Kumita

University position

MRC Career Development Award Fellow

Dr Janet Kumita is pleased to consider applications from prospective PhD students.

Departments

Department of Pharmacology

Email

jrk38@cam.ac.uk

Home page

https://www.phar.cam.ac.uk/directo...

Research Theme

Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

Interests

My research group uses a multidisciplinary approach, including biophysics, cell biology and protein engineering, to study the molecular processes underlying protein self-assembly, in particular aberrant amyloid fibril formation related to disorders including Parkinson’s disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and systemic amyloidosis, and more recently to study the phenomena of liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) in biology and its relevance to cellular protein quality control mechanisms. Our main areas of study are: 1) Establishing a structure-function relationship between biomolecular condensates and protein degradation; 2) Defining the structural characteristics of amyloid-related aggregates and determining how these species alter cellular quality control mechanisms and cell-to-cell transfer processes - factors that are crucial in neurodegenerative disease progression; and 3) Understanding protein homeostasis in ageing and disease.

Research Focus

Keywords

biomolecular condensates

amyloid fibrils

protein homeostasis

autophagy

protein engineering

Clinical conditions

Motor Neurone Disease

Parkinson's disease

Equipment

Cell culture

Fluorescence microscopy

Protein purification

Recombinant protein expression

Collaborators

Cambridge

Rosana Collepardo-Guevara

Laura Itzhaki

Gabriele Kaminski-Schierle

Tuomas Knowles

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