Brain disease genes, ecology elections and Martian rocks: News from Imperial

Here’s a batch of fresh news and announcements from across Imperial.

From potential breakthroughs in brain disease research, to ecology society elections and even returning rocks from Mars, here's some quick-read news from across Imperial.

Decoding brain disease genes  

Ninety five percent of all new drugs fail in clinical development, most often because the drug target is wrong. This is a major issue for brain diseases like Alzheimer’s, where hundreds of trials have been abandoned due to lack of efficacy. 

To tackle this, researchers at Imperial College London led by Professor Michael Johnson, Dr Verena Zuber, Dr Leo Bottolo and Dr Alexander Haglund, created a unique dataset that maps how genes work in over 2.3 million individual brain cells from 400 human brain tissue donors.

Their work uncovered dozens of promising drug targets for conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and schizophrenia.  They found that these targets varied depending on whether cells came from people who had died with a brain disease or who were neurologically healthy at the time of death. 

The team says the work highlights the importance of studying both healthy and diseased brains to better understand how genes influence neurological health, and could ultimately help to improve early diagnosis and treatment of brain diseases.

Read the full paper in Nature Genetics. 

Ecology expert elected as society Vice President     

Dr Caroline Howe, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Social Science, was elected as Vice President of the British Ecological Society (BES) at its annual meeting in Liverpool.  

Dr Howe’s appointment comes after a distinguished career in interdisciplinary research, with a focus on sustainable development, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being. She has employed a systems-based approach to research and has served as a lead author for the IPBES Nexus Assessment over the past three years, working with over 160 expert authors globally.

The election also marks the first time in the Society’s history that the President, President Elect, Vice President, and CEO of the BES are all women.

As Vice President, Dr Howe hopes to foster a more inclusive and equitable scientific community. She said: “I will advocate for those who have not traditionally had access to science, widening participation both within the BES but also ecology more broadly, so that through just and equitable science and participation, we can work towards a world in which both people and nature thrive.” 

Ambitious Mars Mission   

Imperial researchers are set to contribute to an ambitious project to bring back samples of rock, surface material and gas from Mars by the 2030s. 

The Mars Sample Return campaign, which includes space agencies and university partners such as Imperial's Department of Earth Science and Engineering, involves the Perserverance Rover mission that landed in 2021 and has been analysing materials on the Red Planet ever since. 

Astrobiologist Professor Mark A. Sephton said, "Being able to analyse samples of Martian atmosphere, regolith and rock using state-of-art laboratories on Earth will bring about a huge leap in our understanding of the geology and evolution of Mars. The question of whether life ever emerged on Mars may be answered by the detection of biomarkers, while the general chemistry of the samples will help preparations for human explorers in the future.  

“Imperial scientists are contributing to this international effort by helping to identify which samples are most likely to contain evidence of past life and developing new techniques to safely handle and analyse these historic samples upon their return.” 

Read more in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.