Chandrakanth Edamakanti is a Research Assistant Professor at Northwestern University, The Ken & Ruth Davee Department of Neurology. He received PhD (2014) from the University of Würzburg in neurology department. During PhD, his research focus is to understand the role of c-Jun transactivation in neurodegeneration and inflammation central nervous system. In 2014, he joined the lab of Dr. Puneet Opal at Northwestern University as a Post-Doc. During postdoc, his research focused is on understanding the early pathological derailments that drive the disease pathogenesis in adult-onset neurodegenerative disorders, typically manifest in mid-life or later. Specifically, his keen research focus is on polyglutamine disorders called Spinocerebellar ataxias (SCA). His primary focus is to explore the existence of plausible non-cell autonomous toxicity (non-neuronal or neuronal) of Purkinje cells before the disease onset. His recent research work (J Clin Invest. 2018 Jun 1;128(6):2252-2265) suggested that the earliest dysfunction of Purkinje cells stems from inhibitory interneurons those generate during postnatal development. His current goal is to uncover novel therapeutic targets to modulate the GABAergic inhibitory neurons and improve the SCA1 disease phenotype. He is also interested in unraveling the existence of compensatory mechanisms/secondary cascades that determine the disease onset. Targeting these novel cascades could lead to potential therapeutic targets in the SCA field.
