James Shonhard

PhD thesis: The Role of Transposons in Driving Neuroinflammation in Parkinson’s And Incidental Lewy Body Disease

Working between the labs of Dr Joanne Jones and Professor Roger Barker, my project will focus on the role of transposons in neuroinflammation in both Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and Incidental Lewy Body Disease (LBD). Using technologies such as Nanostring nCounter, snRNA-seq, Immunohistochemistry, and Xenium Spatial transcriptomics on post-mortem brain samples, while also culturing iPSC and hESC cells and differentiating into neural cell types and glia. These cells will be manipulated using CRISPRa/i (activation/inhibition) to test the directionality of transposon expression/innate responses and their capacity to inhibit specific pathways. This will allow for further understanding of the role of transposon re-expression in PD neuroinflammation and how this may drive neurodegeneration or influence disease progression in the early and late stages of PD, potentially leading to the development of new therapeutic targets for PD and LBD.

Who or what inspired you to pursue your research interests?

I became interested neuroscience due to a family member having cerebral palsy, leading me to investigate this topic from a young age. At university, I learnt more about neurodegenerative diseases, and the necessity for adequate treatments and understanding of the pathogenesis of these diseases. After my BSc I decided to continue in academic research in neurodegeneration as I am keen to continue to add to the collective knowledge of these diseases, either by helping to identify modes of action or identifying methods to treat these currently incurable progressive diseases.