Research summary
Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), pose a tremendous health, social and economic burden to people in Canada. Although researchers have studied these diseases for decades, the discovery of new treatments has been hampered by our limited understanding of what causes these diseases. As Canada Research Chair in Personalized Genomics of Neurodegeneration, Dr. Maxime Rousseaux aims to help fill this knowledge gap.
He and his research team are exploring the molecular underpinnings of ALS and Parkinson’s disease, two neurodegenerative diseases that share some important cross-cutting molecular themes. Using a combination of high throughput approaches and in-depth animal model characterization, Rousseaux and his team aim to shed light on the molecular conditions that lead to these disorders. By increasing our understanding of these phenomena, their research could help to identify new drug targets to treat these incurable diseases.