Insights Into Human Neurodegeneration: Lessons Learnt from Drosophila

This book is aimed at generating an updated reservoir of scientific endeavors undertaken to unravel the complicated yet intriguing topic of neurodegeneration. The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster has been utilized as a model organism to study a number of human neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases for more than two decades. The fruit fly offers multiple advantages for the investigation of the molecular mechanisms of diseases, for instance, short life cycle, high offspring numbers, low cost of maintenance, simple yet powerful genetic manipulation techniques, the availability of mutants, and other genetic tools are only some of the attractive features of Drosophila as a model organism. This book provides greater insight into the classical as well as the recent knowledge obtained from Drosophila that aids to dissect out the molecular mechanisms underlying different neurodegenerative disorders and unravel new scopes for therapeutic interventions. To begin with, readers are acquainted with the different methodologies available to create humanized fly models that faithfully reflects the pathogenicities associated with particular disorders. This book interestingly includes information on the exciting area of neural stem cells. A brief discussion on neurofibrillary tangles, a characteristic phenotype associated with common neurodegenerative disorders, precedes the elaborate description of lessons learned from Drosophila about Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's diseases, RNA expansion disorders and Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia Disease. The role played by different signaling pathways on neurodegeneration has been discussed in-depth. The book concludes with the use of Drosophila for identifying pharmacological therapies for neurodegenerative disorders. The wide range of topics covered in this book are relevant not only for beginners who are new to the concept of the extensive utility of Drosophila as a model to study human disorders; but also be a contribution to the scientific community, giving an insight into the paradigm shift in our understanding of neurodegenerative disorders in an interesting and awe-inspiring manner.

Dr. Mousumi Mutsuddi is currently working as a faculty in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Banaras Hindu University, India. She has more than two decades of experience in research and more than a decade of teaching at postgraduate level where she teaches Genetics and Molecular Biology. Dr. Mutsuddi has worked at leading research institutes in India and United States. She has been trained in research at Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research (2000-2004), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States, following which she joined as a Scientist at Broad Institute (2004-2006), Massachusetts Institute of Technology which is a premier biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. She was also a visiting scientist to Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2008) and at National Institute of Health, Bethesda, United States (2012-2013). Her research interest is in the understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration and neurodevelopment. Dr. Mutsuddi has given lectures on her research findings in several international meetings like Drosophila Research Conference, Chicago, Neuroscience Meeting, Orlando in United States, Human Genetics meeting at Barcelona, Spain and Asia-ARVO etc. She has given invited talks at several places like University of Valencia, Spain, University of Rutgers, Robertwood Johnson Medical School, as well as pharmaceutical companies like Novartis, EnVivo and Celdara Pharmaceuticals. She is also in the editorial board member of several journals as well as in the board of reviewers of many other journals. She has been appointed as an expert for Pre-training Monitoring of companies under Biotechnology Industrial Training Programme (BITP), by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and was also member of committee for M.Sc in Medical Biotechnology and Molecular and Human Genetics, National Course Curriculum Revision committee organized by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. Recently she was awarded Visiting Research Faculty position to North Eastern Region by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India in recognition for her outstanding contribution to the field of Biotechnology (2017). She has contributed to more than 40 publications in reputed journals like Current Biology, American Journal of Human Genetics, Genetics, Human Mutation and Journal Neuroscience etc. Dr. Mutsuddi was nominated as one of the six founding member of the Drosophila Board of India as well as elected as member of executive committee for Indian Society of Cell Biology for the period 2013-2015. She is life member of the Indian Society of Developmental Biology, Biotech Research Society of India and has been also nominated as life member of Indian Academy of Neuroscience.

Dr. Ashim Mukherjee is working as a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Banaras Hindu University, India. He has almost thirty years of research experience in the field of Drosophila Genetics and Molecular Biology. Previously, he has worked as postdoctoral research associate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and at the Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA. He has decade-long teaching experience at postgraduate level. His research interest is to decipher the molecular mechanism involved in regulation of Notch signaling. He has identified several novel interacting partners involved in different aspects of Notch signaling. He has published more than 30 papers in renowned journals like Nature Cell Biology, Genome Research, Current Biology, Genetics, Developmental Biology, Cellular Signalling, Journal of Neuroscience etc. Dr. Mukherjee is member of the Drosophila Board of India, life member of Indian Society of Cell Biology and the Indian Society of Developmental Biology. He is also member in the editorial board of several journals and also serves as reviewer for many journals.