Photo credit: Dr. Jennifer Petersen.
Neurodegeneration is an increasing and unmitigated disease burden in our aging population. Among its causes are damaged mitochondria that accumulate with age, particularly in post-mitotic neurons and myocytes. Our group studies monogenic disorders to uncover mitochondrial stress responses that curb mitochondrial damage in neurodegeneration. Our focus includes PINK1 and Parkin, which form a stress-induced mitophagy pathway that targets damaged mitochondria for degradation. Mutations in these genes are the most common recessive forms of Parkinson’s disease, linking mitophagy to neurodegeneration. We are additionally focused on dominant mutations in the paralogs CHCHD2 and CHCHD10, which cause Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia, and myopathy. In addition to enabling precision therapies for neurogenetic disorders, our work is uncovering fundamental mitochondrial stress responses to mitochondrial damage.
Principal Investigator
Dr. Narendra received his MD from the University of Michigan and his PhD from Cambridge University. He subsequently completed the Mass General Neurology Residency at Harvard Medical School and the Penn Neurology fellowship in Movement Disorders.
Dr. Narendra became chief of the Inherited Movement Disorders Unit, Neurogenetics Branch, NINDS in 2017. He is a recipient of a Lasker Clinical Research Scholarship and the Grass Foundation - American Neurological Association award in Neuroscience.