Kreesan Reddy is undertaking his doctoral studies at the Centre for Brain Research, supervised by Dr Victor Dieriks with co-supervision from Professor Michael Dragunow and Professor Maurice Curtis. Last year, he received an Auckland Medical Research Foundation Scholarship and is set to start his PhD in April 2022. Having completed a Bachelor of Science and an honours degree in biomedical science at the University of Auckland, he will begin his thesis entitled “A strain-specific approach: Identifying proteins associated with unique alpha-synuclein polymorphs for the distinction and treatment of different synucleinopathies”.
Synucleinopathies are a collective of neurodegenerative diseases characterised by lesions of misfolded α-synuclein aggregates. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most well-known synucleinopathy affecting an estimated 10 million worldwide. It is presently the fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease, with patients doubling from 2.6 to 6.3 million between 1990 and 2016. Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) is a less common disease that presents remarkably similar to PD in the clinic. As such, approximately 20% of patients diagnosed with PD are found to have MSA upon autopsy, with the converse occurring in patients diagnosed with MSA.
There are no biomarkers or disease-modifying treatments for PD and MSA. Current treatments address disease symptoms, eventually becoming ineffective in the late stages of the disease. It is thought that the shortcomings of these treatments are based on their use after significant neurological damage has occurred. The project aims to identify potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets that enable the distinction and treatment of specific synucleinopathies early in the disease. It is estimated that delaying the onset of neurodegenerative disorders by one year can reduce the number of cases by 11%; therefore, providing new therapeutic targets and biomarkers may help reduce disease burden in the future.