One potential cause of Alzheimer’s disease being explored by researchers is related to the damage done to membranes of neurons by amyloid-beta (AB) peptides. U-M biomedical engineer Michael Mayer is exploring how the peptides are accumulating in Alzheimer’s patients, forming rings and punching a hole in the neurons. Mayer’s research has found a “Goldilocks” complex in reverse – that the medium, or “just-the-right-size” aggregates, are those that cause the damage.
About the Professor: Michael Mayer is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan College of Engineering. His research group, the Biomembrane Lab, focuses on transport and signaling processes across biological membranes. The goal of the group is to increase the molecular understanding of these processes and ultimately to employ the ensuing insight to diagnose and possibly treat human disease. They are particularly interested in ion channel proteins that are involved in Alzheimer’s disease and in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and type I diabetes mellitus, as well as transporter proteins that are responsible for resistance to chemotherapy in treatment of cancer.
