Lakshmana Lab

Madepalli Lakshmana, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Immunology and Nano-Medicine. He has more than twenty years of experience in basic and translational research of neurodegenerative disorders, particularly Alzheimer’s disease.

His recent research includes the autophagy-lysosome pathway, aging, and adult hippocampal neurogenesis, and molecular mechanisms of senescence. He has developed several biological assays on proteins such as sAPPα (neuroprotection), HDAC2 (epigenetics), and TFEB (autophagy). And he has identified several hits which are at various stages of development.

Lakshman identified RanBP9 in a large protein complex that includes LRP, APP, BACE1, and COPS5, which plays a crucial role in the amyloidogenic processing of APP, Aβ generation, and loss of synapses.

The Lakshmana lab utilizes the following methods and models:

• Transgenic mice, temporal and cell-type-specific knockout mice 
• Transmission electron microscopy 
• Primary neuronal cultures 
• Proteomics 
• High-throughput and high-content screening 
• ELISA, immunoblotting, and immunohistochemistry 
• Induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons 
• Human brain tissues from Alzheimer’s and ALS patients 

His laboratory is located in Academic Health Center 1, room 415.