People

Searlait Thom

Searlait Thom is a PhD student studying mitochondria-specific autophagy (mitophagy) in LBD. Dysfunctional mitophagy has long been suspected to play a role in LBD as risk genes such as PINK1 and PRKN encode mitophagy proteins. Searlait is combining confocal microscopy of post-mortem brain tissue with in vitro models of alpha-synuclein aggregation to examine the role of deficient mitophagy in Lewy body formation.