Dr Rebecca Casterton

Research Interests

My research focuses on investigating cellular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases such as motor neuron disease, frontotemporal dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. Neurodegenerative disease prevalence in South Africa is predicted to quadruple by 2050, therefore understanding these diseases and finding effective therapeutic avenues in a South African research context is an urgent research priority.

My research explores a new, relatively unexplored, avenue of neuronal function, which has the potential to uncover completely new pathways for therapeutic targeting. This is 'cell cycle re-entry in mature post-mitotic neurons', which has been reported to occur in neurodegenerative diseases and has even been observed in healthy rodent neuron models. However, the precise purpose of this phenomenon in health and disease remains unknown. I predominantly explore these research questions using human stem-cell derived neuron models, post-mortem brain tissue, and confocal microscopy - visualising live, human neurons in real-time.

I am committed to exploring my work in the context of diverse genetic ancestry, as I believe it is crucial we address global representation gaps in disease research. In this capacity my work also helps advance infrastructure and tools available to the African research community, such as deriving and characterising new induced pluripotent stem cell lines of South African genetic ancestry.

Research Areas

Clinical Neuroscience • Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience • Neurogenetics