Dr Jonathan Pansieri is a neuroscientist in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford since 2020. He completed his B.Sc in Biology (Bordeaux, France) his M.Sc in Immunology (Montpellier, France) and his PhD in Biomedical Sciences (Grenoble, France), at the prestigious French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). After his PhD, he worked at the Umea University in Sweden, in Pr. Ludmilla Morozova-Roche world-leading group, working on the amyloid proteins and their potential for diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative disorders, ie Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. To better understand the essential features of neuropathologies and their underlying mechanisms such as inflammation, neurodegeneration and amyloid toxicity, he decided to improve his knowledge by working on multiple sclerosis, supported by the UK MS society. His research work has resulted in more than 20 publications in the top 10% of journals in neurology and neuropathology related fields, such as Nature, the American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic immune-mediated neurological disease characterised by inflammation, demyelination, and subsequent neurodegeneration that results in disability and reduction of quality of life. Pathological studies suggest that neuronal and axonal loss in corresponding areas of motor decline (motor cortex) and along the neuraxis (spinal cord) are one of the major causes of irreversible disability in MS, while misfloded proteins so called amyloids and inflammation play a key role in MS-related immune dysfunction. However, the causes of inflammation and neuronal loss remain elusive, and current treatments have little or no impact on halting the accumulation of progressive disability in the long-term.

Given this, there is an urgent need to understand the etiology of MS and find druggable targets with the ability to prevent these two main features of such cureless disease.

Dr Jonathan Pansieri research focuses on genetic-transcriptomic-pathologic correlations in MS. He is also focused on the close relationships between inflammation, neurodegeneration and amyloid aggregation in other neurodegenerative disorders such as demyelinated diseases and Alzheimer's.