As part of the visit by a delegation from Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, open lectures on neurobiology were held for students and postgraduates at the Russian-Armenian University on November 7. 

Presentations were given by Ilya Besprozvanny, Corresponding Member of the RAS, Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neurodegeneration at SPbPU, and Mivi Kim, a PhD, specialist in biophysics and computational neurobiology.

Professor Besprozvanny delivered a lecture on the Role of Calcium Signaling in the Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease, in which he discussed the role of calcium signaling dysregulation in neurons in the development of the disease, its connection with autophagy impairment, and the prospects for using the SERCA pump as a new target for therapy.
He is the Deputy Director for Science and Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology at the I. Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the RAS, Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neurodegeneration at St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, and a leading global expert in the field of neuronal calcium signaling and neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Mivi Kim, in her turn, gave a lecture on the new potential function of synuclein as a dopamine transporter.

She introduced the result of the research demonstrating a new hypothesis about the role of the synuclein protein as a dopamine transporter, which may be key in understanding the mechanisms of Parkinson's disease. Dr. Kim's work combines methods of biophysics, structural biology, and computational approaches. She is the recipient of the I.B.M. Frey Award and the Young Investigator Award from the Ataxia Research Foundation (USA), and has authored  23 scientific publications and 4 patents.

It should be noted that the lectures were organized by the Institute of Biomedical Systems and Biotechnology of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University and the Institute of Biomedicine and Pharmacy of the Russian-Armenian University.

 

 

 

Translated by Tatevik Ghulyan