VCP Scientific Focus Group

Dr. Alyssa Johnson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Louisiana State University, where she investigates mechanisms of proteostasis and age-related degenerative diseases using invertebrate model systems, including Drosophila and C. elegans. She earned her B.S. in Chemistry from Hope College and a PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from Vanderbilt University, where she studied cell division in fission yeast under Dr. Kathy Gould. She then conducted postdoctoral research in Dr. Grae Davis’s lab at UCSF, where she first started to study VCP utilizing fruit flies after it appeared as a top hit in a screen for genes involved in neurological conditions. Her postdoc work was supported by a Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund fellowship and an NIH-NINDS K99 Pathway to Independence Award, and her lab is currently funded by and R35 Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award from NIGMS. Her research on VCP continues at LSU, especially…