Dr. Shawn Whitehead

from In Conversation With: Anatomy and Cell Biology Researchers 2022

Dr. Stephen Renaud

Neurological Diseases

How has your work evolved over the last year?

“It's been a challenging couple of years. I think the biggest way that our work has evolved is by getting more mechanistic. We are trying to understand why inflammatory cells are being activated in aging and understanding what they are doing in response to stress. How does this directly contribute to cognitive impairment? This kind of work has required us to bring in new techniques and new people with different skill sets.It's involved new collaborations. The plus side of being in this post-COVID situation is that collaboration is getting easier. The idea of getting on the phone back in the day may have been a little bit intimidating or daunting, but now through Zoom meetings, I talk every week talk to people all over the world about some really interesting ideas and some potential collaborations. The other area that I think our lab is really starting to take off in involves looking at liquid biopsies of inflammation. We’re looking at microparticles that circulate in the blood that we can identify and track based on their cell of origin. We can look at these biomarkers and plasma and know that they came from inflammatory cells specifically in the brain. It’s really been a dedicated effort from a core group of students who have learned these techniques and learn these approaches from the ground up.”

Where do you see the field headed in the next 5-10 years?

“I think that the biggest barrier for neurodegenerative research or research in general is accurate diagnostics. We know that by the time patients are diagnosed, there's really very little you can do in virtually any neurodegenerative disorder. You can't reverse it. You can slow it down sometimes, and even that’s variable depending on the disease. So, it’s about early diagnosis. In order to improve early diagnostics, you need to know about the early fundamental processes to intervene. The field is really starting to learn that you need to go after different metabolic targets at different times. The second area we’re headed towards is personalized medicine. It’s about understanding that everybody responds differently to drugs and that everybody has different metabolic signatures. The technology has really evolved to drive personalized medicine approaches or personalized intervention approaches.”