Old and defective proteins need to be degraded by cells. Proteins destined for degradation are first tagged with ubiquitin, a molecule that can be covalently attached to proteins. Specific types of ubiquitination direct proteins for degradation by proteasomes. Sayaka Yasuda, a senior scientist in the Protein Metabolism Project, studies proteasomal degradation.
Sayaka
YASUDA
How are old, damaged proteins and organelles degraded in cells? Defects in degradation cause devastating diseases including Parkinson’s disease in humans. Koji Yamano, a senior scientist in the ubiquitin project at TMIMS has been working to understand the mechanisms involved in degradation of defective mitochondria.
Koji
YAMANO
Neurodegenerative diseases are thought to be caused by the accumulation of toxic protein aggregates. Genjiro Suzuki, a senior scientist in the Dementia Research Project has been studying how similar protein aggregates cause different neurodegenerative diseases with different toxicities and symptoms.
Genjiro
SUZUKI