Dr. Ivanova is a Research Assistant Professor,
Department
of Neurology, Adjunct Assistant Professor,
Program
of Biophysics, and a faculty of the
Neuroscience
Graduate Program at the University of Michigan.
The main focus of the Ivanova lab is to study protein aggregation
diseases, which include amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),
frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Alzheimer's (AD) and Parkinson's (PD).
These diseases are linked to abnormal accumulation of proteins which
had lost their normal/functional folds. These abnormally folded
proteins can self-associate and recruit other proteins, thus changing
the cellular homeostasis. Careful analysis of the abnormal
accumulations reveals that the proteins forming them adopt beta-sheet
fold and are organized into a long fibrillary structures. Such
assemblies are commonly known as amyloid fibrils and are
exceptionally resistant to degradation and disassembly. Currently we
are interested in identifying the forces that drive the protein
conversion into the abnormal fold and its contribution to
neurodegeneration and cellular death. Such studies can be directly
applied to discover and design molecules that efficiently delay, and
even prevent the abnormal accumulation of proteins.
We use a combination of structural and cellular
methods tied to specific clinical applications. Projects
currently underway are focused on alpha-synuclein, ubiquilin2, tau
and C9orf72 products, proteins that deposit in PD, ALS, FTD, and AD.