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	2002 Fellow			Luis T. Falzone, Ph.D. Lab. of: Lawrence Goldstein, Ph.D. Dept. of Cellular and Molecular Medicine University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive CMM-West, Room 336 La Jolla, CA 92093 Tel: (858) 534-9702 Fax: (858) 534-9701 Email: tfalzone@ucsd.edu

Country: ARGENTINA

Field: Cellular and Molecular Biology

Research Interest: Intracellular transport carried-on by molecular motor protein drives the delivery of a wide battery of organelles and vesicular cargoes. Neurons depend on these transports for their normal development, axon growth and neuronal plasticity. Neurotransmitters, enzymes, synaptic vesicles and mitochondria must all be conveyed via organized transport systems. Elucidate the axonal transport mechanisms are becoming increasingly important because of its role in neuron development and in neurodegenerative diseases. Kinesins and dyneins motor proteins expressed in neurons interact with different cargoes through the association of distinct cargo-bound receptors and one of the key questions is the understanding of how the molecular motor players interact and how is produced the specificity of different cargoes transported by motor proteins. We will be focused on the identification of the motor proteins expressed in dopaminergic neurons to understand the role of the cargoes axonal transport under normal neuronal function and the relationship of transport impairments with the manifestation of neurodegenerative dopaminergic diseases like Parkinson.