MCB Seminar Speaker Series: Functional Amyloids: A Non-Toxic Cellular Response to Stress

Dr. Tim Audas, associate professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Simon Fraser University, will present Functional Amyloids: A Non-Toxic Cellular Response to Stress. 

Dr. Tim Audas is an Associate Professor and Tier II Canada Research Chair (Cellular Stress) in the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry department at Simon Fraser University. During his PhD at the University of Guelph, he became interested in understanding how cells cope with changes to their environment. Dr. Audas continued studying these stress-signalling pathways at the University of Ottawa (Postdoctoral Fellowship) and the University of Miami (Associate Scientist), before taking a faculty position at Simon Fraser University in 2016. He now leads a team of researchers that study a novel stress-induced protein aggregation pathway. These natural aggregates closely mirror the toxic plaques and tangles that form in patients suffering from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s diseases. Dr. Audas hopes that gaining a better understanding of how these natural aggregates assemble/disassemble will lead to new insights and therapeutic strategies for the treatment of these debilitating neurodegenerative disorders.

Free. No registration required.