Sensing of Alpha-Synuclein aggregation states using solid state nanopores

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurological condition affecting 7 million people worldwide, and for which there is no cure. The pathology distinguishing feature is the loss of dopaminergic neurons, which results in decreased level of dopamine in the brain. Despite PD etiology still being largely unknown, several observations have led to believe that toxic -synuclein oligomers are involved in the death of neurons. However, the neurotoxicity of -synuclein aggregates and the mechanisms behind it are far from being fully understood, mainly because of the difficulties associated with the detection of these oligomers. As a response to this challenge, my research project looks at the use of solid state nanopores as a label-free technology for detecting different aggregation states of -synuclein.

Mini-bio

• PhD in Chemical Biology (2017-Present), Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, Supervisors: Prof. Joshua Edel, Prof. Tony Cass, Dr. Aleksandar Ivanov
• MRes in Chemical Biology (2016-2017), Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, Supervisors: Prof. Joshua Edel, Prof. Tony Cass, Dr. Aleksandar Ivanov
• MSc in Pure Mathematics (2015-2016), Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, Supervisor: Dr. John Britnell
• BSc in Mathematics (2012-2015), Department of Mathematics, Queen Mary University of London, Supervisor: Dr Matthew Fayers

Publications

• Cadinu P.*, Campolo G.*, Pud S.*, Yang W., Ivanov A.P., Dekker C., Edel J. B.,  Double Barrel Nanopores as a New Tool for Controlling Single-Molecule Transport. Nano Letters, 2018, 18(4):2738-2745.  (doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00860)
• Cadinu P., Paulose Nadappuram B., Lee D.J., Sze J.Y.Y., Campolo G., Zhang Y., Shevchuk A., Ladame S., Albrecht T., Korchev Y., Ivanov A.P., Edel J.B., Single Molecule Trapping and Sensing Using Dual Nanopores Separated by a Zeptoliter Nanobridge. Nano Letters, 2017, 17(10):6376-6384. (doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b03196)