Gary Miller
Columbia University, NY·Neuroscience
Brain cells that die in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease are shaped by forces both inside and outside the body. Some threats come from the environment, such as heat waves and storms.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Public Health & Epidemiology
Pharmacology
- Topics
neurodegeneration
Alzheimer's disease
Parkinson's disease
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Mar 2028
What they work on
- Determine how extreme weather events, measured with a New York City Extreme Weather Index, change Alzheimer's-related molecular networks in plasma from a geocoded community cohort of older adults, using multiomic network biology.
- Test whether extracellular vesicles, tiny packets that brain cells release into the blood, carry markers of extreme weather-related neurodegeneration in people from the same Alzheimer's disease cohort.
- Expose short-lived C. elegans worms and turquoise killifish to extreme temperatures, then measure aging-related disease, lifespan and molecular networks so the results can be compared with the human data.
- Uncover how SV2C, a synaptic vesicle protein linked to Parkinson's disease, keeps dopamine stored in vesicles and how it changes nerve-cell damage caused by toxic chemicals such as MPTP.
- Test whether adding evolutionarily advanced SV2 proteins to C. elegans worms protects their dopamine neurons from toxic damage.
- Define how SV2C works in mice and whether it shapes disease in mouse models of Parkinson's disease driven by alpha-synuclein clumping or by toxic chemicals.
More about the research
Others come from the cell's own chemistry: dopamine, a chemical messenger that neurons use to signal, can become toxic when it is not stored properly. The research asks how these outside and inside stresses push the aging brain toward neurodegeneration. One project links extreme weather to Alzheimer's-related biology in people and in short-lived animals. The other studies a protein that may protect dopamine-making neurons from damage linked to Parkinson's disease.
Why it matters
Older adults face growing exposure to heat waves and other extreme weather. The weather project could reveal blood-based markers that flag who is most vulnerable to weather-related brain decline, including people at risk for Alzheimer's disease. Many environmental chemicals linked to Parkinson's disease are thought to disrupt dopamine storage. Clarifying how SV2C protects dopamine neurons may explain why some people are more vulnerable to these chemicals and could point to SV2C as a target for future Parkinson's treatments.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Julie Saugstad
Oregon Health & Science University, OR·Neuroscience
Characterize the size and surface marker proteins of cerebrospinal fluid extracellular vesicles from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and control participants, comparing females vs. males and APOE-e4 vs. APOE-e3 carriers.
Kathryn Conlon
University of California-Davis, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether lifetime exposure to extreme weather events (extreme heat, drought, wildfire) is linked to brain imaging markers, cognitive decline, and dementia, using geocoded residential histories of 3,379 diverse Northern California older adults.
Torsten Falk
University of Arizona, AZ·Pharmacology
Test whether the glycopeptide PNA5 improves memory and thinking deficits in male mice injected with alpha-synuclein preformed fibrils, compared with scrambled-glycopeptide and vehicle controls, using behavioral tests.
The school
Columbia University: 89 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 625 research doctorates a year.
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