Julia C. Fitzgerald, PhD

Julia Fitzgerald earned her MRes and PhD at Nottingham Trent University in the UK; her Master thesis on mitochondria received special distinction and she continued to work on the role of mitochondrial enzyme monoamine oxidase for her doctoral studies. She completed postdoctoral research on the mitochondrial biology of Parkinson’s disease at the Institute of Neurology, University College London, University of Sheffield and the University of Tübingen, where she continued as a Junior Group Leader in the Department of Neurodegeneration at The Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research. She is currently a Research Group Leader, qualifying as a private lecturer at The Medical Faculty of The University of Tübingen.

Her scientific contributions include elucidation of biological functions of mitochondrial proteins associated with Parkinson’s disease, namely, TRAP1, HtrA2 and Miro1 along with PINK1. More recently, she developed induced pluripotent stem cell models for mitochondrial forms of Parkinson’s disease to be able to identify neuronal specific mechanisms of disease. She recently completed several studies investigating several mitochondrial biomarkers in human cohorts. Currently, her research is focused on bringing together basic and clinical research on mitochondria to understand mechanisms of aging and neurodegenerative diseases.