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| Mark R. Cookson, Ph.D., Investigator |
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Dr. Cookson received both his B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Salford, UK, in 1991 and 1995, respectively. He obtained postdoctoral training at the Medical Research Council laboratories and the University of Newcastle, UK, before joining the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, as a Senior Research Fellow and Assistant Professor of Neuroscience. Dr. Cookson moved to the NIA in 2002 and is currently and Investigator in the Laboratory of Neurogenetics. His group uses cellular and molecular biology tools to study inherited neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease, attempting to understand the mechanisms leading to neuronal damage.
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Research Interests:
(1) Modeling effects of mutations associated with familial neurodegeneration in vitro (2) Neuronal phenotype and selective vulnerability in Parkinson's disease (3) Contribution of glial cells to neurological disease and neurotoxicity.
My research has focused on the cell biology of the nervous system, as applied to the study of neurotoxic agents (PhD thesis work) and subsequently applied to the study of human neurological disorders. During my postdoctoral work, I developed a strong interest in the application of genetic information to the understanding of human diseases, first in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and subsequently in Parkinson's disease. With respect to Parkinson's disease, I am particularly interested in the relationships between recessive gene products and the toxic effects of aggregating proteins that are produced by dominant gene mutations. Whilst at the Mayo clinic, Jacksonville, I received RO1 funding from NIH to work parkin and alpha-synuclein in relation to familial Parkinson's disease.
One problem that particularly intrigues me is the phenomenon of selective vulnerability in these disorders where different neuronal groups are affected. In Parkinson's disease, for example, we have examined the vulnerability of different neuronal groups to alpha-synuclein mediated cellular damage. This approach of combining genetic information with cellular models has yielded a number of high profile publications in the last two years (see bibliography). I am currently running an eight-person group at NIH in the laboratory of Neurogenetics, NIA. More information about my research can be found at: http://www.grc.nia.nih.gov/branches/lng/cbgeu.htm.
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Contact Information:
Dr. Mark R. Cookson
Cell Biology and Gene Expression Unit, NIA
Building 35, Room 1A116
35 Convent Drive, MSC 3707
Bethesda, MD 20892-3707
Telephone: (301) 451-3870 (office),
(301) 451-7295 (fax)
Email: Cookson@mail.nih.gov
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