Aarthi Ashok

Teaching Interests

• BIOD29H: Pathobiology of Human Disease
• BIOD95H: Supervised Study in Biology (coordinator)
• BIOD98/99Y: Directed Research in Biology (coordinator)

Research Interests

My interests lie in the cell biology of human genetic diseases. In particular, I am interested in understanding the mechanisms by which misfolded proteins are dealt with by the cellular quality control and intracellular trafficking machineries in human genetic prion diseases. I am also interested in understanding potential links between protein misfolding disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Huntington and prion diseases.

Keywords:

• genetic disease
• misfolded proteins
• quality control
• prions

Research Area: Biochemistry, Cell & Molecular Biology

Current Research

I am interested in exploring the link between the intracellular accumulation of mutant prion protein and neuronal cell death in specific regions of the brain in human prion diseases.