Our lab is interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms leading to neuronal cell death in dementia. Dementia's main risk factor is increasing age, and as the population ages the prevalence of this disease has rocketed, making it the leading cause of death in the UK.

We use fruit fly models of dementia to understand disease progression. Fruit flies make excellent models to study this disease as they have well-defined brains, with similar cell types to human brains. They also don't live very long, allowing us to study disease progression throughout the whole lifespan of the organism which is very important in studying diseases affecting older population.