Research Interests: Neuropathology and Biomarkers of Neurodegenerative Disease.

Keywords: Neuropathology, Digital Pathology, Biomarkers, Frontotemporal degeneration, Primary progressive aphasia, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lewy body disorders, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, tau, amyloid-beta, alpha-synuclein, TDP-43.

Research Details: In the Penn Digital Neuropathology Lab (DNPL), we use a multidisciplinary approach merging techniques in "wet-lab" based histopathology of human brain tissue with "dry-lab" based image analysis and bioinformatics tools with the overarching goal of improving our understanding of brain-behavior relationships and the antemortem diagnosis of neurodegenerative disease.

Currently, the diagnostic standard is neuropathological examination at autopsy, which is a major obstacle for clinical trials in neurodegenerative disease. To address this problem our approach is to "work backwards" to study human brain tissue and measure neuropathology objectively using novel open-source digital image analysis tools; We use a "tissue-guided biomarker discovery” method to translate our findings with the ultimate goal to develop new laboratory and imaging tests to detect pathology in living patients.