Research area A:
Mechanisms of damage

Protecting brain tissue against destruction is the key challenge in acute and chronic neuro-degeneration. A tremendous overlap exists between deleterious mechanisms of clearly separated brain disease entities. Independent of initiating pathophysiology, damage and death of neurons, glial cells, and vascular elements in the CNS follow stereotypical mechanisms and conserved signaling events. NeuroCure scientists have already identified and investigated up- and down-stream targets by which the cascade of brain damage can be intercepted: receptor-gated ion channels and transporters, inflammatory proteins, death ligands and receptors, as well as caspases, to name but a few. Based on our previous preclinical and clinical findings, NeuroCure researchers will join forces to unravel novel mechanisms of damage, such as aberrant cell cycle activity, epigenetic mechanisms of cell death, as well as the ubiquitin proteasome system and protein misfolding. We will apply systematic analysis of protein-protein interaction networks to discover new damage mechanisms and therapeutic targets, and perform clinical proof-of-principle as well as Phase II studies in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage. Thus, understanding and consequently intercepting mechanisms of damage is a main goal of NeuroCure , which we will pursue from preclinical models to clinical trials.