Gunnar Gouras

JAD profile

Affiliation(s): 

Lund University

Lab URL: 

https://www.med.lu.se/expmed/experimental_dementia_research

ORCID URL: 

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5500-6325

Areas of Interest: 

Alzheimer's disease

Biography & Research: 

Gunnar Keppler Gouras (Gouras G or Gouras GK in papers) is Professor of Experimental Neurology, head of the Neurobiology section and the Experimental Dementia Research Unit, and coordinator of the Strategic Research Environment in Neuroscience - MultiPark, in the Department of Experimental Medical Science, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University in Lund, Sweden. His research focuses on Alzheimer's disease and related neurodegenerative disorders. Prior to his move to Lund in 2011, he was Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. His research has focused on the cellular and synaptic biology of Alzheimer's disease-linked beta-amyloid. Beta-amyloid has traditionally viewed as an extracellular peptide that abnormally aggregates as amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease. His publication Gouras GK et al., 2000, provided the first evidence that particularly the disease-linked Abeta42 variant accumulates early within vulnerable neurons in Alzheimer's disease, as well as in Down syndrome. Utilising immuno-electron microscopy his group subsequently discovered that Abeta42 localises to multivesicular bodies (MVBs) of normal neurons in the brain and with Alzheimer's disease preferentially accumulates and aggregates in synaptic terminals, providing the 1st physical link between beta-amyloid and synapses (Takahashi RH et al., 2002; 2004); as well as the 1st association of beta-amyloid promoting tau pathology in synaptic terminals (Takahashi RH et al., 2010). His lab further provided the first evidence for selective beta-amyloid dependent alterations in synaptic proteins (Almeida CG et al., 2005) and the surprising finding that antibodies directed against beta-amyloid require internalisation into cells to protect against alterations in synapses (Tampellini D et al., 2007). Several papers focused on synaptic activity and cellular beta-amyloid metabolism and synapse pathology (Tampellini D et al., 2009; 2010; 2011). Recent work focuses on the native conformation of Abeta in brain (Klementieva et al., 2017) and the cell biology of synaptic Abeta aggregation (Willen et al., 2017).