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Epigenetic factors in Triplet-Repeat Associated Diseases
| Murdoch Childrens Research Institute |
Co-supervisors: Dr Marguerite Evans-Galea, Prof. Martin Delatycki
The importance of epigenetic changes in neurodegenerative disease, and their potential influence on
clinical parameters, is just being realised. Several conditions, such as Friedreich ataxia, Fragile-X
syndrome, Kennedy disease and Huntington disease, are caused by trinucleotide repeat expansions
in specific genes. Recent work within the MCRI has established a link between DNA methylation
in the region of repeat expansion with clinical parameters of Fragile X Syndrome and Friedreich
ataxia.  View project details
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Epigenetic regulation of gene expression in epilepsy
Co-supervisors: Dr. Kim Powell
Background: Epigenetics describes the way chromatin/DNA structure can influence the gene expression. This relatively new field of molecular biology is well-advanced in development and in cancer research, but has received little to no attention with respect to neurological conditions such as epilepsy. Changes in gene expression are heavily implicated in the disease process of epilepsy (referred to as epileptogenesis) which turns a normal healthy brain into an epileptic brain, and epigenetic alterations are a strong candidate to mediate such gene expression changes. This program seeks to investigate epigenetic changes associated with epilepsy to determine whether such modifications in chromatin structure contribute to epileptogenesis. We are currently focussing on three projects. View project details
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Evaluating novel treatments for Alzheimer’s disease by in vivo-brain microdialysis
| Mental Health Research Institute |
Supervisors - Dr. David Finkelstein, Dr. Robert Cherny, Professor Ashley Bush
email: dfinkelstein@mhri.edu.au; rcherny@mhri.edu.au; abush@mhri.edu.au
Laboratory Overview: The Oxidation Disorders (Neuropathology) laboratory at MHRI is dedicated to understanding the causes of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and other age-related neurodegenerative diseases. The major themes of projects running in the laboratory are: 1) Oxidative stress in neurological disorders. 2) The molecular and cellular basis of neurotoxicity associated with the deposition of aggregating proteins in the neurodegenerative disorders including AD, PD, Motor Neurone and Huntington’s diseases. 3) Advancing basic understanding of the interactions between cellular proteins and biologically important metals
View project details
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Evaluating the quality of stroke care in Australia
| Florey Neuroscience Institutes |
The Public Health research group for the Stroke Division of FNI has been undertaking research into the hospital care of stroke patients for over 10 years. Datasets with between 500 and 4000 cases are available which can be used to investigate a number of important research questions. In 2011, exciting new data can be used from the Australian Stroke Clinical Registry and, if the student is interest, sub-studies may be added. View project details
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Evaluating the role of relaxin in the treatment of fibrotic disorders
| Florey Neuroscience Institutes |
The hormone relaxin stimulates the breakdown of collagen in several female reproductive organs in preparation for child-birth and when administered to various models of heart/lung/kidney/skin/liver fibrosis (tissue scarring caused by excessive collagen deposition in response to impaired healing, following injury/disease). Thus, it has great clinical potential as an anti-fibrotic agent. View project details
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