dec
2022
Arvid Carlsson, Academicum, Medicinaregatan 3
No registration required.
Welcome to the Sahlgrenska Academy Science Seminars, a series of seminars on Thursdays at 15-16. The seminars are conducted in Lecture Hall Arvid Carlsson at Academicum and online through zoom webinar.
Here is the link to the webinar: https://gu-se.zoom.us/j/66557480692
The seminars are open to anyone interested in taking part of scientific breakthroughs and projects in the medicine and health science field. Scientists, students and other staff from GU, VGR and other organisations with the common interest of medicine and health science, welcome!
Speaker: Professor Stefanie Schirmeier, Dresden University, Germany
Topic:
The human brain, even though it represents only 2% of the body weight, is responsible for 20% of the total oxygen consumption. This illustrates the great energy need of the nervous system. Thus, highly energetic compounds must be delivered to the neurons. This is hindered by the blood-brain barrier (BBB) that protects the nervous system from harmful substances, but at the same time blocks paracellular diffusion of metabolites. As a consequence, the BBB-forming cells express a variety of transport proteins to enable import of essential compounds and export of waste products. One feature of many neurodegenerative diseases is disturbed neural metabolism. Stefanie Schirmeier’s lab aims to better understand metabolic interactions taking place in the nervous system using the genetically accessible model organism Drosophila melanogaster to study neural carbohydrate metabolism in detail. Their work focuses on how the transport of metabolites and their distribution within the nervous system are organized. Recently, they showed that in Drosophila carbohydrates are taken up from circulation by the BBB-forming glial cells and are metabolized primarily by glial cells via glycolysis. The glia subsequently secrete alanine and lactate, which can fuel the neuronal citrate cycle and respiratory chain. Thus, a metabolic division of labor between glial cells and neurons takes place. The lab exploits the genetic strength of Drosophila to unravel the underlying regulatory mechanisms that allow neuron-glia communication and modulate nutrient uptake and distribution.
Host: Ruth Palmer, Dep. of Biomedicine
Welcome!
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Send an email to research.support@sahlgrenska.gu.se
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