Abby Olsen

The long-term mission of my laboratory is to develop new therapeutic targets for Lewy body diseases (LBD), including Parkinson’s disease (PD), Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD), and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). There are two major areas of focus in my laboratory, both of which represent areas of untapped therapeutic potential for LBD: 1) The genetic contribution of glia to LBD, and 2) the role of gene-environment interactions in LBD. I hope to advance new potential therapeutic targets by development of improved animal models and better integration of data across models. My vision for my laboratory is to use Drosophila to discover genes that contribute to LBD pathogenesis, then uncover the mechanism of these genetic modifiers in rodent models of LBD as well as human iPSC derived neurons and astrocytes. I also have expertise in using human patient cohort data (genetic and environmental).