Christopher Janney

Background

About Christopher Janney

Based on more than 15 years of experiences working in many industries, organizations, and positions, combined with academic study of psychology and the brain, I developed a burning question: How does the workplace affect us? That drove me to focus on studying and understanding the mechanisms and systems of health, disease, and disorders. Over time, my research developed to focus on understanding the underlying mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases, and to better understand what happens as we age. I also became fascinated with understanding how a simple, abundant, non-neuronal cell called an astrocyte is involved with both aging and neurodegeneration. Initially, my research looked at a ubiquitous protein associated with neurodegeneration and aging, TDP-43, to determine the effects it may have on the brain when pathologically expressed in astrocytes, which showed pathological TDP-43 in astrocytes could induce non-cell autonomous neurodegeneration and generate anxiety-like behaviors with sex differences. Next, I focused on understanding the role of astrocytes in sleep disturbances related to aging and neurodegenerative diseases, followed by testing treatments for inflammation in multiple diseases and disorders related to aging and neurodegeneration. Currently I am part of a team working to make preventative, precision neurology a reality for as many people as possible. We are doing this using blood based biomarkers to look at pathology in neurodegenerative diseases, followed by personalized interventions to improve those biomarkers. Additionally, we are working on making testing possible through a finger prick instead of a venous blood draw, further reducing cost and making testing more readily accessible to even more people!