The Center for Neurologic Diseases
 
 

Welcome

The LaVoie lab is a part of the Center for Neurologic Diseases in the Department of Neurology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. We are also active members of the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center, a large consortium of neuroscientists across the entire Harvard Medical School system and all its teaching hospitals who are interested in the study of neurodegenerative disease.

The LaVoie lab is primarily interested in the etiology of Parkinson's disease, a neurologic disorder affecting more than 1 million Americans today. There are several inherited forms of Parkinson's disease, and while these are very rare, we study the genetic forms of the disease in an effort to uncover the underlying causes of the more common, sporadic forms of Parkinson's disease.

 


Recent Publications

  • Berger AK*, Cortese GP*, Amodeo KD, Weihofen A, Letai AG, LaVoie MJ (2009). Parkin Selectively Alters the Intrinsic Threshold for Mitochondrial Cytochrome C Release. Human Molecular Genetics, in press. [click here]

  • LaVoie MJ, Cortese GC, Ostaszewski BL, Schlossmacher MG (2007). The Effects of Oxidative Stress on Parkin and Other E3 Ligases. J Neurochem 103(6),2354-68.

  • LaVoie MJ, Ostaszewski BL, Weihofen A, Schlossmacher MG, Selkoe DJ (2005). Dopamine covalently modifies and functionally inactivates parkin. Nature Medicine 11(11):1214-1221.

    See News and Views in Nature Medicine [click here]
    See Commentary in Lancet Neurology [click here]
    View Comments and Discussion at Alzforum.org [click here]

  • LaVoie MJ, Card JP, Hastings TG. Microglial activation precedes dopamine terminal pathology in methamphetamine-induced neurotoxicity (2004). Experimental Neurology 187(1):47-57.

  • LaVoie MJ, Fraering PC, Ostaszewski BL, Ye WJ, Kimberly WT, Wolfe MS, Selkoe DJ (2003). Assembly of the gamma-secretase complex involves early formation of an intermediate subcomplex of Aph-1 and nicastrin. Journal of Biological Chemistry 278(39): 37213-22.

  • Kimberly WT, LaVoie MJ, Ostaszewski BL, Ye WJ, , Wolfe MS, Selkoe DJ (2003). Gamma-secretase is a membrane protein complex comprised of presenilin, nicastrin, Aph-1, and Pen-2. PNAS 100 (11): 6382-7.

 

 

 

 
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