Secretion, Autophagy and their role in Neurodegeneration

Neurodegenerative disorders are among the leading causes of mortality and will become more relevant in our continuously aging societies. Most neurodegenerative disorders exhibit alterations in proteostasis, i.e. an imbalance between protein production, sorting and degradation. The secretory and the autophagic pathways are two major regulators of cellular proteostasis and their crosstalk is likely to be relevant for neurodegeneration. Thus, there is a need to train a new generation of early stage researchers that will exploit and translate the fundamental biology principles of autophagy, secretion and their crosstalk in human diseases. Our ETN will explore the links between Secretion, Autophagy and their role in NeuroDegeneration (SAND) and will consolidate the position of Europe as a leader in this field by: (i) providing a framework for training and supervision of students to provide them with a repertoire of transferrable and scientific skills that will equip them for careers in academia and industry. (ii) bringing together leading experts in the fields of autophagy, secretion and neurodegeneration from academia and industry into a consortium that involves 22 participants from 12 countries (12 academic beneficiaries from 13 institutions, 3 industry beneficiaries, 4 non-academic partners and 3 academic partner institutions) (iii) using a unifying strategy such as a common stock of cell lines for screening and a common electronic custom-made database tailored to the needs of our consortium (iv) combining complementary expertise such as systems biology, chemical biology, model organisms (zebrafish, drosophila and mouse models), cellular models (neuronal cell lines, primary neurons and patient-derived iPSC neurons) and techniques (e.g. EM, intravital imaging, proteomics, microfluidics) (v) exploiting the translational potential because the network contains three clinically active neurologists, non-academic partners interested in development of drugs and diagnost