Drosophila melanogaster models for neurodegenerative diseases

Drosophila models of neurological disease are essential to understand complex human pathologies in many different aspects of the biomedical research. The program of the course will cover the latest achievements in Drosophila state-of-the- art methodologies aimed to the accurate representation of human disease and the design of innovative therapeutic and diagnostic approaches. The lectures will include an introduction to Drosophila neurogenetics as well as an overview of various strategies to induce cell-type specific gene expression or silencing in the nervous system. In parallel, the course will also instruct participants on how to measure synaptic functioning, perform in vivo imaging analysis, assess altered neurological behaviors and evaluate these traits in disease models.