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Frederick Maxfield, Ph.D.

Chairman and Professor of Biochemistry; Vladimir Horowitz and Wanda Toscanini Horowitz Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience, Weill Cornell Medical College

Dr. Maxfield has applied quantitative imaging methods to the study of membrane biology. He was among the first to use fluorescence microscopy for quantitative analysis of membrane traffic, which led to fundamental mechanistic insights regarding the endocytic trafficking of proteins and lipids. This included the initial demonstration that endosomes are acidic and that acidification is essential for many endosomal functions. His laboratory also provided much of the initial characterization of a novel organelle, the endocytic recycling compartment. Using cell culture models, he has shown that microglia can internalize plaque material, but they fail to digest it efficiently because they don’t properly acidify their lysosomes. His laboratory now is extending these studies into in vivo measurements of lysosome acidification and digestion of amyloid plaques by microglia.

Related Research:

Role of Microglia in Degradation and Trimming of Alzheimer’s Amyloid Beta Frederick Maxfield 2022-02-15 Regulation of Microglial Lysosome Acidification Frederick Maxfield 2016-12-06

Funded Research

These projects were made possible from Cure Alzheimer's Fund support.

Project Description Researchers Funding
Role of Microglia in Degradation and Trimming of Alzheimer’s Amyloid Beta 2021-2022

$345,000
Regulation of Microglial Lysosome Acidification 2016, 2017, 2019

$420,006

Selected Publications

These published papers resulted from Cure Alzheimer’s Fund support.

Jacquet, R. G., González Ibáñez, F., Picard, K., Funes, L., Khakpour, M., Gouras, G. K., Tremblay, M. È., Maxfield, F. R., & Solé-Domènech, S. Microglia degrade Alzheimer’s amyloid-beta deposits extracellularly via digestive exophagy, Cell Reports, December 24, 2024, Read More

Solé-Domènech, S., Rojas, A. V., Maisuradze, G. G., Scheraga, H. A., Lobel, P., & Maxfield, F. R. Lysosomal enzyme tripeptidyl peptidase 1 destabilizes fibrillar A beta by multiple endoproteolytic cleavages within the beta-sheet domain, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, February 13, 2018, Read More

Tcw, J., Qian, L., Pipalia, N. H., Chao, M. J., Liang, S. A., Shi, Y., Jain, B. R., Bertelsen, S. E., Kapoor, M., Marcora, E., Sikora, E., Andrews, E. J., Martini, A. C., Karch, C. M., Head, E., Holtzman, D. M., Zhang, B., Wang, M., Maxfield, F. R., Poon, W. W., & Goate, A. M. Cholesterol and matrisome pathways dysregulated in astrocytes and microglia, Cell, June 23, 2022, Read More

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