People
An interdisciplinary team united by a commitment to understanding aging and developing therapies for neurodegenerative disease.
Principal Investigator
Research Professor
Dr. Pamela Maher is a Research Professor in the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Her laboratory focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms that connect aging to neurodegenerative diseases, with a particular emphasis on Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Maher and her team were among the first to describe oxytosis, a non-apoptotic cell death pathway now understood to overlap with ferroptosis, and have demonstrated its relevance to brain aging and neurodegeneration. The lab uses natural products as the basis for drug discovery, applying phenotypic screening assays grounded in aging biology to identify compounds that target multiple pathways simultaneously. Two drug candidates developed by the lab, CMS121 and J147, are currently in human clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease.
Education
Honors & Awards
Select any team member to view their full profile.
David Soriano Castell
Senior Research Associate
David Soriano Castell is a researcher in the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. His work addresses how neurons and aging cells lose control of redox and lipid metabolism, and how that failure drives neurodegeneration.
Nawab John Dar
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Nawab John Dar is a Postdoctoral Scientist in the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
Alix Flake
Visiting Researcher
Alix Flake is a visiting researcher from the University of Würzburg, Germany, currently a guest in the lab. Alix is a trained pharmacist and is in the third year of her PhD under the supervision of Prof.
Careers
There are no open positions in the lab at this time.
If you hold your own funding and are interested in contributing to our research on oxytosis, ferroptosis, and Alzheimer's disease drug discovery, we would still like to hear from you. Please write directly to Dr. Pamela Maher with a short note about your background and research interests.
Email pmaher@salk.edu →