Ageing Increases Vulnerability to Aβ42 Toxicity in Drosophila (2012)
Journal Article
Rogers, I., Kerr, F., Martinez, P., Hardy, J., Lovestone, S., & Partridge, L. (2012). Ageing Increases Vulnerability to Aβ42 Toxicity in Drosophila. PLOS ONE, 7(7), Article e40569. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0040569

Age is the major risk factor for many neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's Disease (AD), for reasons that are not clear. The association could indicate that the duration or degree of exposure to toxic proteins is important for pathology,... Read More about Ageing Increases Vulnerability to Aβ42 Toxicity in Drosophila.

Mechanisms of Life Span Extension by Rapamycin in the Fruit Fly Drosophila melanogaster (2010)
Journal Article
Bjedov, I., Toivonen, J. M., Kerr, F., Slack, C., Jacobson, J., Foley, A., & Partridge, L. (2010). Mechanisms of Life Span Extension by Rapamycin in the Fruit Fly Drosophila melanogaster. Cell Metabolism, 11(1), 35-46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2009.11.010

The target of rapamycin (TOR) pathway is a major nutrient-sensing pathway that, when genetically downregulated, increases life span in evolutionarily diverse organisms including mammals. The central component of this pathway, TOR kinase, is the targe... Read More about Mechanisms of Life Span Extension by Rapamycin in the Fruit Fly Drosophila melanogaster.

Deletion of Irs2 reduces amyloid deposition and rescues behavioural deficits in APP transgenic mice (2009)
Journal Article
Killick, R., Scales, G., Leroy, K., Causevic, M., Hooper, C., Irvine, E. E., Choudhury, A. I., Drinkwater, L., Kerr, F., Al-Qassab, H., Stephenson, J., Yilmaz, Z., Giese, K. P., Brion, J.-P., Withers, D. J., & Lovestone, S. (2009). Deletion of Irs2 reduces amyloid deposition and rescues behavioural deficits in APP transgenic mice. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 386(1), 257-262. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrc.2009.06.032

As impaired insulin signalling (IIS) is a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease we crossed mice (Tg2576) over-expressing human amyloid precursor protein (APP), with insulin receptor substrate 2 null (Irs2(-/-)) mice which develop insulin resistance. Th... Read More about Deletion of Irs2 reduces amyloid deposition and rescues behavioural deficits in APP transgenic mice.

Hyperphosphorylation of tau and neurofilaments and activation of CDK5 and ERK1/2 in PTEN-deficient cerebella (2007)
Journal Article
Nayeem, N., Kerr, F., Naumann, H., Linehan, J., Lovestone, S., & Brandner, S. (2007). Hyperphosphorylation of tau and neurofilaments and activation of CDK5 and ERK1/2 in PTEN-deficient cerebella. Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, 34(3), 400-408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mcn.2006.11.014

Inherited mutations to the tumor suppressor PTEN sporadically lead to cerebellar gangliocytoma characterized by migration defects. This has been modeled by CNS-specific PTEN ablation in mice, but the underlying mechanism cannot be explained by the kn... Read More about Hyperphosphorylation of tau and neurofilaments and activation of CDK5 and ERK1/2 in PTEN-deficient cerebella.