Sonia Gandhi (scientist)

British physician and neuroscientist

For the politician, see Sonia Gandhi.

Sonia Gandhi

Alma mater|

* University of Cambridge
* University of Oxford
* University College London

Scientific career
Fields| Protein misfolding
Neurodegeneration
Parkinson's disease
Institutions|

* University College London
* Francis Crick Institute
* Imperial College London

Thesis| The role of PINK1 in Parkinson's disease (2009)
Website| www.crick.ac.uk/research/find-a-researcher/sonia-gandhi

Sonia Gandhi is a British physician and neuroscientist who leads the Francis Crick Institute neurodegeneration laboratory.[1][2] She holds a joint position at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology. Her research investigates the molecular mechanisms that give rise to Parkinson's disease. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gandhi was involved with the epidemiological investigations and testing efforts at the Francis Crick Institute.

## Early life and education

[edit]

Gandhi studied neuroscience at Trinity College, Cambridge, and earned her bachelor's degree in 1996.[3][4] She moved to the University of Oxford to complete a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (BM BCh) degree in medicine.[5] She was a trainee neurologist at the Hammersmith Hospital, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and Whittington Hospital. In 2004 she was awarded a Wellcome Trust fellowship to work toward a doctoral degree in neuroscience at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, and completed her PhD in 2009.[6]

## Research and career

[edit]

She was awarded a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) lectureship at Imperial College London in 2009.[3] In 2012 she was awarded a Wellcome Trust intermediate clinical fellowship to study the misfolding of alpha-synuclein in Parkinson's disease, and how this misfolding causes neurotoxicity.[7] Gandhi established her laboratory at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology in 2013.[8] Her research group develop human-derived induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models of disease, with a focus on understanding how the aggregation of alpha-synuclein, a protein encoded by the SNCA gene, impacts cell physiology.[8] She makes use of single-molecule FRET and mitochondrial physiology to study the behaviour of alpha-synuclein at the molecular level.[7]

In 2016 Gandhi was awarded a secondment at the Francis Crick Institute.[9] Gandhi and co-workers showed that clumps of alpha-synuclein can be toxic to neural function, damaging proteins on the surface of mitochondria.[10][11] This damage forced a channel on mitochondria to open and made them less efficient in their production of energy, causing them to swell and leak essential chemicals – eventually causing the cell to die.[10] To perform the experiments, Gandhi and colleagues turned human skin cells into stem cells, which were converted into brain cells that could be investigated into the laboratory.[10] She was part of a team who investigated the use of exenatide as a means to slow the progression of multiple system atrophy.[12] In February 2020 Gandhi was awarded a Medical Research Council (MRC) clinical fellowship to study the fundamental origins of Parkinson's disease.[13]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gandhi studied the epidemiology of coronavirus disease.[14] In particular, Gandhi was interested in how the virus evolved throughout the course of the pandemic, how it impacted the nervous system and how it was transmitted between people.[14] She was also involved with the COVID-19 testing that took place at the Francis Crick Institute.[15]

### Selected publications

[edit]

Gandhi's publications[1][2] include:

* A common LRRK2 mutation in idiopathic Parkinson's disease[5]

* Mechanism of Oxidative Stress in Neurodegeneration[16]

* PINK1-Associated Parkinson's Disease Is Caused by Neuronal Vulnerability to Calcium-Induced Cell Death[17]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b Sonia Gandhi publications from Europe PubMed Central
2. ^ a b Sonia Gandhi publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
3. ^ a b "Dr Sonia Gandhi". UCL. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
4. ^ ""The toxic consequences of protein aggregation in Parkinson's disease"". Oxford Parkinson's Disease Centre. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
5. ^ a b Gilks, William P; Abou-Sleiman, Patrick M; Gandhi, Sonia; Jain, Shushant; Singleton, Andrew; Lees, Andrew J; Shaw, Karen; Bhatia, Kailash P; Bonifati, Vincenzo; Quinn, Niall P; Lynch, John (2005). "A common LRRK2 mutation in idiopathic Parkinson's disease". The Lancet. 365 (9457): 415–416\. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)17830-1. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 15680457. S2CID 36186136.
6. ^ "Sonia Gandhi". crick.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
7. ^ a b "Grants awarded: Intermediate Clinical Fellowships | Wellcome". wellcome.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
8. ^ a b "Sonia Gandhi, PhD". michaeljfox.org. Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
9. ^ UCL (2020-02-21). "Dr Sonia Gandhi awarded new fellowship". ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
10. ^ a b c "Scientists unravel molecular mechanisms of Parkinson's disease: Detailed brain cell analysis has helped researchers uncover new mechanisms thought to underlie Parkinson's disease". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
11. ^ Institute, UK DRI: UK Dementia Research (2020-06-01). "UK DRI: UK Dementia Research…". ukdri.ac.uk. UK Dementia Research Institute. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
12. ^ "Researchers begin trial of drug to slow progression of neurodegenerative condition Multiple System Atrophy". uclh.nhs.uk. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
13. ^ UCL (2020-02-21). "Dr Sonia Gandhi awarded new fellowship". Brain Sciences. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
14. ^ a b "Coronavirus (COVID-19) research". crick.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
15. ^ Hughes, Laura; Hodgson, Camilla (16 April 2020). "UK unlikely to hit 100,000-a-day virus test target, warn experts". Financial Times. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
16. ^ Gandhi, Sonia; Abramov, Andrey Y. (2012). "Mechanism of Oxidative Stress in Neurodegeneration". Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity. 2012: 428010. doi:10.1155/2012/428010. ISSN 1942-0900. PMC 3362933. PMID 22685618.
17. ^ Gandhi, Sonia; Wood-Kaczmar, Alison; Yao, Zhi; Plun-Favreau, Helene; Deas, Emma; Klupsch, Kristina; Downward, Julian; Latchman, David S.; Tabrizi, Sarah J.; Wood, Nicholas W.; Duchen, Michael R. (2009-03-13). "PINK1-Associated Parkinson's Disease Is Caused by Neuronal Vulnerability to Calcium-Induced Cell Death". Molecular Cell. 33 (5): 627–638\. doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2009.02.013. ISSN 1097-2765. PMC 2724101. PMID 19285945.

Authority control databases: Academics |

* ORCID
* Scopus

|