Latest News

  • Current career opportunities in the lab...more information

  • We are proud to announce that Lisa Jungbauer was the poster winner in the Post Doc Category at the 2008 Neuroscience Day, hosted by The Brain Research Foundation... more information




    • Links for Students

    University of Illinois at Chicago

    UIC College of Medicine

    UIC Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology

    MD / PhD Training Program

    Graduate Education in Medical Sciences

    Webmail



    Welcome to the LaDu Alzheimer's Disease Research Lab

    Extraordinary progress has been made in the past decade toward understanding and diagnosing the memory and cognitive dysfunctions that define the progessive dementia characteristic of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the underlying causes and possible treatments and cure for AD remain elusive. We are a cellular, biochemical, and molecular biology laboratory run by Dr. Mary Jo LaDu as part of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. We investigate the causes of AD by focusing on the structural and functional properties of, and interactions between, two proteins that are genetically, pathologically, and biochemically linked to AD: amyloid-β (Aβ) and apolipoprotein E (apoE).



    AD is pathologically characterized by the presence of extracellular amyloid plaques (composed of aggregated amyloid-β peptide) and intracellular neurofibrilary tangles (composed of aggregated tau).

    [Attribution: Unknown]


    Activated astrocytes (GFAP, brown) surrounding an apoE-immunostained amyloid plaque (blue). ApoE is an abundant component of amyloid plaques, which are composed of parallel β-pleated sheets of Aβ1-42 peptide.

    [Metzger, J. Neuropath Mol. Neurology, 1998]

    University at Illinois at Chicago©2005-2009 LaDu Lab, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Illinois at Chicago
    808 S. Wood St., Rm 578 MC 512, Chicago IL 60612 | Privacy Notice |
    Last Update: 01/29/09