Dr. Paul Seidler's lab uses structural biology and computational chemistry to develop inhibitors of tau pathology, which is thought to drive neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease and dozens of other neurodegenerative disorders. Work in Dr. Seidler's lab focuses on natural and synthetic ""disaggregant"" small molecules, which have the potential to untangle neurofibrillary tangles of tau and restore the degradation of tau through normal biological pathways that are overwhelmed during aging.
The lab uses cryo-electron microscopy of natural product inhibitors as a starting point to inform the synthesis of new inhibitor molecules and leverages artificial intelligence and chemical library screening to design candidate drug molecules, in collaboration with the University of Southern California Medicinal Chemistry Core.
Prior to beginning his lab at the University of Southern California, Dr. Seidler was a recipient of a BrightFocus award that funded his early work on tau inhibitors and was a Ruth Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in the laboratory of Dr. David Eisenberg.
Dr. Seidler has received numerous awards including a 2018 Turken Research Award for studies on Alzheimer's disease, a 2019 award from the UCLA Department of Energy for scientific productivity, and a Young Investigator Scholarship from the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation in 2018 and 2019.