Neuroproteomics

Dr. Oscar Alzate currently holds the position of associate professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, North Carolina). He is also the director of the UNC Systems Proteomics Center. His interests include the application of neuroproteomics to the elucidation of molecular pathways and protein interaction networks using animal models for neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Alzate, a molecular biophysicist, has developed proteomics laboratories for the Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute at the Ohio State University, the Neuroproteomics Laboratory at Duke University, and the Proteomics Laboratory at the Pontifical Bolivariana University in his native Colombia. His passion is playing with proteins, trying to develop better ways to isolate, identify, and characterize proteins using combinations of all available biophysical techniques. Dr. Alzate's search for functional protein interaction networks in cell cultures, primary cells, and mouse and human tissue in order to develop models of neurological diseases utilizes differential-display proteomics, mass spectrometry, iTRAQ, protein arrays, MALDI-based tissue imaging, and computational proteomics. In addition to his own research program, he is involved in more than 20 collaborative projects that include the neurobiology of synapses; neuroproteomics of the auditory and visual systems, and Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's diseases, as well as epilepsy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.