In this seminar, Dr Yeo will cover both lung dysfunction and neurodegeneration in A-T. She will describe the establishment of airway epithelial cells from patients with A-T, microbial composition of the upper airway of patients and the response of these epithelial cells to oxidative damage caused by infection and its implication for lung disease. The second part of her presentation will address the role of the ATM protein, mutated in A-T, in protecting against neurodegeneration. It will focus on physiologically-induced DNA double stand breaks (DSB) and their role in signalling in the cerebellum.
