Frontiers in Neuroscience Seminar: Immune component of Parkinson’s disease: periphery vs. brain

Professor Marina Romero-Ramos, Aarhus University, Denmark

Lecture title: Immune component of Parkinson’s disease: periphery vs. brain

Lecture host: Angela Cenci Nilsson

Marina Romero-Ramos is Professor in Neuroscience at the Dept of Biomedicine at Aarhus University. Her research during the last two decades has focused on the different aspects associated with alpha-synuclein induced neurodegeneration during Parkinson’s disease (PD). In particular her lab has developed studies addressing the immune response during PD and the neuroprotective potential of immunomodulatory strategies in the disease. They have shown the dynamic response of microglia in the brain and the active role of the peripheral immune cells in the neurodegenerative process in the brain. These studies have been developed using animal models of PD but also analyzing biosamples derived from humans with PD. Her current projects are focused on understanding the differential immune response associated with the disease’s stages (prodromal, early and late) and subtypes (considering the brain first / body first theory), while studying sex as a important variable in the immune landscape.