报告题目：Mechanism of Neuronal Degeneration in Glaucoma

 

报告人：Dorota Skowronska-Krawczyk, Ph.D. (Associate Project Scientist of Ophthalmology (Faculty), Department of Ophthalmology, University of California, San Diego, USA)

报告时间：2016. 04. 14  10:00-11:00 AM

 

报告地点：生科院429会议室

 

主办单位：中国科技大学

　　　　　　　　　　中科院脑功能与脑疾病重点实验室

 

报告摘要：Glaucoma is a blinding neurodegenerative disease, whose risk factors include elevated intraocular pressure (IOP), age, and genetics. Glaucoma is characterized by accelerated and progressive retinal ganglion cell (RGC) death. Despite decades of research, the mechanism of RGC death in glaucoma is still unknown. We found that the genetic effect of the SIX6 risk variant is enhanced by another major POAG risk gene, p16INK4a (cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor 2A, isoform INK4a). We further showed that the upregulation of homozygous SIX6 risk alleles leads to an increase in p16INK4a expression, with subsequent cellular senescence, as evidenced in a mouse model of elevated IOP and in human POAG eyes. Our data indicate that SIX6 and/or IOP promotes POAG by directly increasing p16INK4a expression, leading to RGC senescence in adult human retinas. Our findings revealed mechanistic insights on RGC degeneration and on our understanding of other types of age-related neuronal degenerative disorders.

 

报告人简介：Dorota Skowronska-Krawczyk, Ph.D. is originally from Lodz, Poland. She was awarded her Ph.D. at the University of Geneva and conducted post doctoral research at the Eye Hospital Jules Gonin and UCSD in the laboratory of Michael G. Rosenfeld, PhD, in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine.

Dr. Skowronska-Krawczyk focuses her research on deciphering molecular mechanisms underlying retina biology using molecular and cellular approaches. She has developed and applied state-of the art technologies to study the in vivo association of transcription factors with their target regulatory elements in the retina. She continues to use her expertise to study genome-wide roles of key transcriptional regulators and changes in chromatin organization during organogenesis and, more recently, to describe the molecular pathways involved in glaucoma. Dr. Skowronska-Krawczyk has also studied nuclear organization and the 3D structure of the genome, and roles they play in the regulation of gene expression underlying natural and pathological processes.

Full list of publications of Dr. Skowronska-Krawczyk can be found here:
PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=skowronska-krawczyk

Dr. Skowronska-Krawczyk’s honors and awards include: The San Diego Foundation Blasker Science & Technology Grant; EMBO (Excellent in Life Sciences) Long Term Fellowship; Swiss National Science Foundation Advanced Postdoctoral Mobility Fellowship; Swiss Society for Neuroscience Fellowship; Poland’s Minister of Education Scholarships