Neurodegenerative Diseases

MSI PIs Sang-Hyun Oh (professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering) and Peter Larsen (assistant professor, Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences) and their colleagues have developed a new diagnostic technique that can be used to detect neurodegenerative diseases more quickly and accurately. The study focused on chronic wasting disease (CWD), which affects deer, but it could also be used in other diseases affecting animals and those that affect humans, like Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. The study was published in the journal Nano Letters: Nanoparticle-enhanced RT-QulC (Nano-QulC) diagnostic assay for misfolded proteins. An article about this research appears on the U of M News website: U of M researchers develop technique for rapid detection of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and CWD.

Professor Oh uses MSI for numerical modeling in studies of the interaction of light with metallic nanostructures for the use of biosensing, metamaterials, and spectroscopy. Professor Larsen uses MSI resources to support multi-omic analyses including transcriptomic, metagenomoic, and epigenomic experiments involving mammals. Professor Larsen is a co-leader of the U of M Center for Prior Research and Outreach, and Professor Oh is the Center’s Director of Engineering.