Ulf Dettmer is currently an assistant professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he explores new strategies for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and related disorders. Combining cell biology, biochemistry, microscopy, imaging and screening approaches, his lab probes the biology of alpha-synuclein: defining its normal and abnormal states, developing screens for its toxic, aggregated structure and using the restoration of its normal structure as a readout for drug discovery. Over the past few years, lipid pathways and the enzyme stearoyl-CoA desaturase became a major focus of his lab’s work, due to the mounting evidence that the effects of alpha-synuclein can be influenced by cellular lipid composition. From his doctoral and postdoctoral work, Dr. Dettmer has a background in basic science and in translational research, both of which play an integral role in advancing drug discovery programs.