Dr. Mohammad Shahnawaz is an assistant professor in neurology at the McGovern Medical School of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. His doctoral research focused on understanding the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders, the molecular mechanisms of amyloid beta peptides in Alzheimer’s disease and the influence of chaperone proteins and small chemicals on the proper folding of amyloid beta peptides. Dr. Shahnawaz has over ten years of experience working with misfolded proteins and peptides implicated in neurodegenerative diseases. He has adapted Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification for the detection of misfolded proteins in CSF for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. He has received three grants as a lead PI funded by NIH, TARCC and APDA for the detection of misfolded proteins in biological fluids. Currently, Dr. Shahnawaz is working on differentiation and characterization of conformational types and subtypes of alpha-synuclein associated with patients with Parkinson’s disease.