麻豆传媒

Dr. Rita Cowell is Fellow and Chair of the Neuroscience Department within the Drug Discovery Division. In this role, she maintains an independently-funded research program, while overseeing the Neuroscience Department with the mission of discovering novel, mechanism-based approaches to treat individuals with neurodegenerative disorders. The research in the Cowell Lab aims to determine how intrinsic transcriptional programs underlying neuronal heterogeneity give rise to selective vulnerability in neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson鈥檚 Disease, Huntington Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and Alzheimer鈥檚 Disease. Her research group is comprised of postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate trainees who are affiliated with Southern Research鈥檚 partner institution, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). The lab is currently supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson鈥檚 Research.

Cowell received her undergraduate degree in biology in 1997 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her Ph.D. in neuroscience in 2002 from the University of Michigan, where she also completed her postdoctoral work. She began her independent research laboratory as an assistant professor at UAB in 2006, rising through the ranks to associate professor. She also served as co-director of the Neuroscience Graduate Theme for the Program in Biomedical Sciences at UAB and associate director for Communications and Outreach for the Civitan International Research Center before joining Southern Research in 2017.  

Using a think tank-like model, she now directs the Neuroscience Department, utilizing its collective expertise in mechanisms of cell death/dysfunction and animal models of disease to identify and prioritize novel targets for small molecule identification using the unique high throughput capabilities of the Drug Discovery Division. Beyond these efforts to the institution, she actively facilitates interactions with local, national, and international groups interested in drug discovery and development in the neurosciences by serving as a liaison and consultant for extramural collaborations. Ongoing collaborations exist with scientists from UAB, HudsonAlpha in Huntsville, Alabama, and numerous other institutions, universities, and companies across the world. Cumulatively, her goal is to lead transformation of drug discovery in the field of neurodegeneration and to improve the lives of those suffering from these diseases.

Dr. Hegde earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Neurosciences from the University of Mysore, India in 2006. He performed his graduate research at the Max-Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry, Gottingen, Germany as a DST-DAAD visiting fellow, and at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India. He held an Assistant Professor appointment at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Texas, USA before becoming a member of the Houston Methodist Research Institute in 2013. As a member of the Research Institute cancer and neuroscience research programs, he directs a research program focusing on understanding the role of genome damage repair in cell death (neurodegenerative diseases) and cell proliferation (cancer) and its potential exploitation in therapeutics. Dr. Hegde has also been a member of grant review boards for the Alzheimer’s Association, USA, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, French Scientific Grants (FMRM) and the Motor Neuron Disease Association, UK, in addition to NIH and DOD-CDMRP study sections. He is a Deputy Chief Editor for the Springer Journal Metabolic Brain Disease and Associate Editor for the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Neurodegenerative Diseases, Jacobs Journal of Radiation Oncology and Research, Journal Neuroscience Research and Therapeutics, the Chinese Journal of Biology, and a peer-reviewer for more than 30 international journals.
Dr. Hegde has published over 90 peer-reviewed publications including more than a dozen as senior author. He has also published five book chapters, edited a book on ALS and four journal special issue collections.  These articles have received nearly 3000 citations. He has received several awards including gold medals in Masters, New Investigator awards from the Alzheimer’s Association, the Environmental Mutagenesis Society, Researcher of the Month (May 2011) at UTMB and prestigious Gopal Krishna Memorial Young Scientist award from ASIOA. He has recently been awarded the Career Cornerstone award from Houston Methodist for outstanding translational research contributions.



Description of Research

Dr. Hegde’s research program focuses on delineating the molecular mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative diseases with a primary emphasis on genome damage and their repair inhibitions/deficiencies in neurons. His laboratory is interested in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and Stroke. He showed that DNA repair inhibitions/deficiencies play a key role in the etiology of neurodegenerative diseases. He demonstrated that transition metals, iron and copper, act as a ‘double whammy’ by both inducing DNA damage and by inhibiting their repair via direct binding and oxidation of NEIL enzymes involved in oxidized DNA base repair. These studies were funded by American Parkinson’s Disease Association. His current studies focus on characterizing the role of ALS-linked RNA binding protein TDP-43 in DNA double-strand break repair and testing the hypothesis that TDP-43’s nuclear clearance and aggregation in ALS (and other neurodegenerative diseases) cause deficient DNA double-strand repair and contributes significantly to cell death. In another project funded by Alzheimer’s Association’s New Investigator grant, he is delineating the mechanism of genotoxicity of amyloid proteins and exploring its prevention by natural compounds. In collaboration with Dr. Sankar Mitra, he is also exploring the potential of genome repair inhibitions in cancer therapeutics. Dr. Hegde’s research program is supported by NIH/NINDS R01, Muscular Dystrophy Association, ALS Association, Alzheimer’s Association and Melo Foundation.

 


Areas Of Expertise
Genome damage response, DNA repair, Neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Stroke


Education & Training

Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
MS, Karnataka University
PhD, University of Mysore, Karnataka
BS, Karnataka University