My main interest is on the role of RNA processing in neurodegeneration and I also have a long-standing interest in the cytoskeleton and its implication in disease mechanisms. A current focus of my work is on the pathomechanisms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia caused by a large hexanucleotide repeat expansion in the C9orf72 gene using systems level unbiased genome-wide strategies and mathematical tools. We have also developed RNA trans-splicing methods to correct defective alternative splicing, opening the way to the treatment of neurodegenerative and other neurological disorders linked to impaired RNA processing.

Please see my  Research Staff Profile  for more detail

Key Publications

Rodriguez-Martin T., Garcia-Blanco M.A., Mansfield S.G., Grover A., Hutton M., Yu Q., Zhou J., Anderton B.H. and Gallo J.-M. (2005). Reprogramming of tau alternative splicing by spliceosome-mediated RNA trans-splicing: Implications for tauopathies. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102: 15659-15664. (doi: 10.1073/pnas.0503150102).

Niblock M., Smith B.N., Lee Y.-B., Sardone V., Topp S., Troakes C., Al-Sarraj S., Leblond C.S., Dion P.A., Rouleau G.A., Shaw C.E. and Gallo J.-M. (2016). Retention of hexanucleotide repeat-containing intron in C9orf72 mRNA: Implications for the pathogenesis of ALS/FTD. Acta Neuropathol. Commun. 4: 18. (doi: 10.1186/s40478-016-0289-4).

Barker H.V., Niblock M., Lee Y.-B., Shaw C.E. and Gallo J.-M. (2017). RNA misprocessing in C9orf72-linked neurodegeneration. Front. Cell. Neurosci. 11: 195. Part of the Research Topic: RNA toxicity mechanisms and therapeutic development in neurological and neuromuscular disorders. (doi: 10.3389/fncel.2017.00195).

Espíndola S.L., Damianich A., Alvarez R.J., Sartor M., Belforte J.E., Ferrario J.E., Gallo J.-M. and Avale M.E. (2018). Modulation of tau isoforms imbalance precludes tau pathology and cognitive decline in a mouse model of tauopathy. Cell Rep. 23: 709-715. (doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.03.079).

Gallo J.-M., Edbauer D. (2022). A perturbed network in neurodegeneration. Science 378: 28-29. (doi: 10.1126/science.ade4210).

 

Key Collaborators

Dr Sarah Mizielinska, King's College London

Professor Kevin Talbot, University of Oxford

Professor Franca Fraternali, Birkbeck College

Professor Josef Penninger, University of British Columbia