The long-term research goal of Tiwari lab is to understand consequences of protein misfolding and aggregation in vitro and how it relates to misfolding and aggregation in vivo, and its implication for neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease). While all these neurodegenerative diseases share a common feature of observed aggregated proteins at the end stage of disease; the underlying mechanism(s) by which these aggregated proteins impair cellular function or cause toxicity is not clearly understood.  To better understand the link between distinctly aggregated protein structures and their associated cellular toxicity, Tiwari lab uses diverse biochemical, biophysical, molecular biology, and cell biology techniques to:

1. Identify experimental conditions that can generate diverse aggregated protein structures from the same proteins.
2. Develop novel tools and techniques to differentiate amongst the varied aggregated species of proteins.
3. Understand the relationship between aggregated protein species and its associated cellular toxicity.