Ryan Hallam (BSc ’18) had a lot in common with his current PhD supervisor, Aleksandar Necakov, during his days as an undergraduate Neuroscience student.<\/p>\n
Hallam and the Associate Professor of Biological Sciences were relatively new to Brock. And both had been deeply impacted by a loved one living with Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got really interested in the work Dr. Necakov was doing in his molecular biology research program, which I learned about when he guest lectured for one of my second-year classes,\u201d says Hallam.<\/p>\n
He began working in Necakov\u2019s lab with the support of a Brock Match of Minds student research grant. That experience, and the support of Necakov as a mentor, had a significant impact on Hallam.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter being exposed to cutting-edge research, my grades went up dramatically the following year, because all the basics being learned in class became much easier to understand,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Fast forward several years and Hallam returned to Brock to pursue his PhD in the Necakov lab, where he has made advancements in Alzheimer\u2019s research and received the prestigious Alzheimer Society Research Program\u2019s Postdoctoral Award<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hallam studies interactions among various proteins and enzymes in the brain associated with Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n The brain contains a large protein called amyloid precursor protein (APP). Two enzymes \u2014 gamma secretase and beta secretase \u2014 cut APP into smaller fragments called amyloid beta \u00a0which then form amyloid plaques.<\/p>\n People living with Alzheimer\u2019s have an excess number of amyloid plaques in their brains, along with build-ups of a protein called tau.<\/p>\n Hallam\u2019s research focused on understanding more about how gamma secretase and beta secretase work, but he faced a big challenge.<\/p>\n \u201cStudying what happens in patients’ brains at the molecular level is extremely difficult,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n To get around that obstacle, he examined brain cells generated from stem cells but encountered a second major problem.<\/p>\n \u201cThe proteins and enzymes in these brain cells are extremely small,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019re looking at a whole cell, there\u2019s tens of millions of proteins, there\u2019s DNA, there\u2019s all sorts of stuff and there\u2019s no way of seeing it all.\u201d<\/p>\n To be able to see such minuscule components through a microscope, scientists find naturally occurring or engineered fluorescent proteins that glow when certain wavelengths of light are focused on them.<\/p>\n