Fred Maxfield, PhD
Professor and Chair of Biochemistry
Weill Cornell Medical College, New York
Research
The research focus of the Maxfield Lab lies on the basic mechanisms regulating the movement of molecules through cells and the role that these processes play in specific diseases. Developing and employing new optical microscopy and biophysical techniques, their studies of endocytic trafficking aim at generating a complete map and kinetic model for endocytic membrane traffic of receptors, ligands, and membrane lipid components. Using fluorescent tracers, they follow the fates of specific molecules and employ various biochemical and molecular biology techniques to test the role of specific proteins in directing membrane traffic in living cells. Further, they study disease-related endocytic processes such as the uptake of large lipoproteins by macrophages that lead to atherosclerotic lesions, and the interaction of cells with the proteins that form Alzheimer's disease plaques.
Selected workshop-related publications
Lysosomal enzyme tripeptidyl peptidase 1 destabilizes fibrillar Aβ by multiple endoproteolytic cleavages within the β-sheet domain.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115(7):1493-1498. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1719808115
Solé-Domènech S, Rojas AV, Maisuradze GG, Scheraga HA, Lobel P, Maxfield FR. (2018)
Mitochondrial Fission Promotes the Continued Clearance of Apoptotic Cells by Macrophages.
Cell 171(2):331-345.e22. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.08.041.
Wang Y, Subramanian M, Yurdagul A Jr, Barbosa-Lorenzi VC, Cai B, de Juan-Sanz J, Ryan TA, Nomura M, Maxfield FR, Tabas I. (2017)
Histone deacetylase inhibitors correct the cholesterol storage defect in most Niemann-Pick C1 mutant cells.
Journal of Lipid Research 58(4):695-708. doi: 10.1194/jlr.M072140.Pipalia NH, Subramanian K, Mao S, Ralph H, Hutt DM, Scott SM, Balch WE, Maxfield FR. (2017)
A murine Niemann-Pick C1 I1061T knock-in model recapitulates the pathological features of the most prevalent human disease allele.
Journal of Neuroscience35(21):8091-106. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4173-14.2015.
Praggastis M, Tortelli B, Zhang J, Fujiwara H, Sidhu R, Chacko A, Chen Z, Chung C, Lieberman AP, Sikora J, Davidson C, Walkley SU, Pipalia NH, Maxfield FR, Schaffer JE, Ory DS. (2015)
Selected Reviews
The endocytic pathway in microglia during health, aging and Alzheimer's disease.
Ageing Research Reviews 32:89-103. doi: 10.1016/j.arr.2016.07.002.
Solé-Domènech S, Cruz DL, Capetillo-Zarate E, Maxfield FR. (2016)
Role of endosomes and lysosomes in human disease.
Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology 6(5):a016931. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a016931.
Maxfield FR. (2014)