Center Group Leaders

Marc Diamond, M.D.

Center Director
Professor
Neurology and Neurotherapeutics
Neuroscience
Lab website

Dr. Diamond joined the faculty of UT Southwestern Medical Center in 2014 as the founding director of the Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases. His research focuses on neurodegeneration from the standpoint of proteins that adopt a self-replicating pathological conformation. His group has elucidated the prion model to explain common neurodegenerative disorders. According to this idea, certain pathological proteins replicate distinct pathological structures and cause distinct patterns of neuropathology. The Diamond lab focuses on elucidating fundamental cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration.

Rachel Bailey, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Pediatrics
Lab website

Dr. Bailey focuses on designing viral-based gene therapies for neurological disorders, optimizing their delivery to the nervous system, and translating these therapies into human testing. Her lab is currently developing gene therapies for rare pediatric disorders and for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.

Lukasz Joachimiak, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Biochemistry
Lab website

he Joachimiak lab uses structural and biochemical approaches to study how changes in protein conformation drive self-assembly into larger structures and the role of cofactors in tuning these assembly pathways. Revealing the structural and mechanistic basis for self-associating proteins complexed with other factors will have important implications for understanding the pathology of neurodegenerative diseases. The lab focuses on three main areas: molecular recognition in tuning protein conformation, method development in hybrid structural analysis of protein complexes, and design of molecular recognition.

Lorena Saelices, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Biophysics
Lab website

The Saelices lab employs crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy to study the molecular basis of amyloid deposition. We then use rational and computational design to generate probes that bind these structures and that can be used as inhibitory agents or as detection tools.

Sarah Shahmoradian, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Biophysics
Lab Website

The Shahmoradian lab employs correlative light and electron microscopy and cryo-electron tomography to study in situ cellular components and macromolecular assemblies that are involved in pathological protein aggregation in neurodegenerative disease. We also employ materials science to develop and apply technologies for multi-scale imaging.

Haiyang Yu, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Molecular Biology
Lab Website

Dr. Yu studies how liquid-liquid phase separation contributes to neurodegenerative diseases by using cutting-edge imaging and cell biological technologies. He also develops novel therapeutic strategies by specifically degrading cytoplasmic protein inclusions, by harnessing E3 ubiquitin ligases for targeted degradation.