Dr. Ronit Sharon received her MSc at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and her PhD at the Weizmann Institute. She then moved on to study neurodegenerative diseases at the Center for Neurologic Diseases at Harvard Medical School, where she made early discoveries concerning mechanisms of neuronal degeneration in Parkinson's disease (PD) and related synucleinopathies. Her original findings centered on the neuronal protein alpha-synuclein and its association with brain lipids (fats). These findings paved the way to understanding the normal physiological function of this protein in synaptic activity and the pathogenic mechanisms leading to neuronal loss. Dr. Sharon is currently conducting research at the department of biochemistry and molecular biology, IMRIC, at the Hebrew University, focuses on identifying targets for therapy as well as diagnostic markers for PD.