Cellular waste disposal study provides new insights into Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s

Cellular waste disposal study provides new insights into Parkinson's and Alzheimer's
An Atg9 vesicle serves as a platform for the recruitment of the autophagic machinery. It thereby forms a seed for the formation of an autophagosome around the cargo by accepting lipids that are transferred by the Atg2 protein from the neighbouring endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Credit: Verena Baumann

A ‘waste collection’ tidiesup our cells. If something does not go according to plan, serious diseasessuch as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s may develop. Molecular biologist Sascha Martens from the University of Vienna together with international partners—researchers of the University of Pennsylvania, Monash University, the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt and the UC Berkeley—investigate the associated process: autophagy. Martens and his team have recently published new results on…

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