Dr. Manuel Seefelder

Dr. Manuel Seefelder is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Gene Therapy, led by Prof. Dr. Stefan Kochanek. His research is dedicated to unravelling the complex molecular mechanisms underlying Huntington's disease (HD), a devastating, inherited neurodegenerative disorder.

Huntington’s disease is caused by the expansion of a CAG repeat sequence in the first exon of the  huntingtin gene leading to the progressive neuronal loss. While the genetic cause is known, the precise cellular functions that are disrupted remain a key area of investigation. His work focuses on a critical molecular puzzle at the center of this disease: the relationship between the huntingtin protein (HTT) and its primary interacting partner, the Huntingtin-associated protein 40 (HAP40). The function of HAP40 is largely unknown, but its levels are significantly reduced in HD, suggesting it plays a vital role in the disease's development.

To decipher the function of HAP40 and its connection to HD pathogenesis, he employs a interdisciplinary approach bridging the gap between traditional wet-lab experimentation and advanced computational analysis. This strategy combines foundational biochemical and molecular biology techniques to probe protein interactions and cellular pathways. The complex, high-dimensional data generated from these experiments are then analyzed using a powerful in-silico toolkit. This includes state-of-the-art bioinformatic pipelines, including machine learning, and Bayesian inference to provide robust, probabilistic interpretations of the findings.