Autophagy is the body’s way of removing damaged waste – or junk – from cells to keep them healthy. It is a ‘waste-disposal’ pathway which eats damaged or unnecessary components that would otherwise accumulate inside cells.

During autophagy, an autophagosome captures and engulfs cellular junk and brings it to the lysosome where powerful enzymes break it down so that its building blocks can be recycled or used as fuel. Special “eat me” signals on damaged – but not healthy – cellular components earmark them for degradation by autophagy. Autophagy therefore serves important housekeeping and nutrient scavenging functions, and is activated in response to organelle damage, infection, and nutrient scarcity. 

Image from Vargas, 2023, Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. PMID: 36302887

Autophagy plays important physiological roles such as adaptation to starvation, innate immunity, fetal development, and maintaining tissue health. When autophagy is disrupted, it can contribute to neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease), certain types of cancer (e.g., pancreatic), and accelerated ageing. As a result, there is increasing interest in developing drugs or interventions that target the autophagy pathway for health benefits.

My research focuses on:

• understanding nutrient-sensing upstream of autophagy
• understanding how types of damage serve as ‘eat me’ signals
• understanding how selective autophagy facilitates cell-state transitions (e.g., senescence)
• understanding how autophagy differs across tissues during ageing and in response to dietary changes
• developing tools for human autophagy measurement (e.g., blood test, biomarkers & PET imaging)

Hear more about my research:

Interested in autophagy research?

I’m always looking for enthusiastic and talented students (PhD, Honours, or undergraduate) to advance our research. If you’re interested in learning more, feel free to reach out to me by email.