Photo of Martin Hallbeck

Martin Hallbeck

Professor

I want to add knowledge about the mechanisms causing diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Through this knowledge we can find new targets for diagnosis and treatment.

New diagnostics and treatment through new understanding of neurodegenerative diseases

Our new understanding of the cellular mechanisms responsible for the spreading of pathology lead to new possibilities for diagnosis and treatment of these devastating diseases.

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's affect millions of people in the world and requires extensive care and cause premature death. Despite great efforts, we do not understand the diseases and we have no cure. The disorders are characterized by the formation of hallmark protein inclusions. Evidence suggests that intracellular, oligomeric forms of these proteins precede aggregate formation, promote pathology, and spread the disease in a prion-like manner.

Me and my research team want to understand why the nervous cells in the brain get sick and how the disease is spread in the brain. To do that, we investigate the cellular mechanisms of propagation and we have developed advanced models and tools to study the neuron-to-neuron spread. With these we address questions like: What happens to the connections between the nerve cells? How does the recipient cell become ill? Can these events be used as diagnostic tools? Could we slow down the disease propagation?

Through this research, we have made important breakthroughs where we could show that toxic protein aggregates can spread between neurons in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Recently, my research team has shown the cellular mechanism that spread Alzheimer’s disease to new brain areas. In cultured cells we could even inhibit this disease propagation. We have also shown that the capacity of the cell's degradation system is decisive for the effect of this spread on the receiving cell.

Understanding the mechanisms causing spreading and damage to new cells is necessary. By combining questions from the clinic with advanced research methods, the projects my research group are working with has the potential to find these mechanisms and through new understanding of the mechanisms of the disease, the projects can provide new possibilities for diagnostics and drug development.


News

Publications

Selected publications

Cover of publication ''
Jakob Domert, Sahana Bhima Rao, Lotta Agholme, Ann-Christin Brorsson, Jan Marcusson, Martin Hallbeck, Sangeeta Nath (2014)

Neurobiology of Disease , Vol.65 , s.82-92 Continue to DOI

Cover of publication ''
Sangeeta Nath, Lotta Agholme, Firoz Roshan, Björn Granseth, Jan Marcusson, Martin Hallbeck (2012)

Journal of Neuroscience , Vol.32 , s.8767-8777 Continue to DOI

Publications in DiVA

2024

Lovisa Johansson, Alexander Sandberg, Sofie Nyström, Per Hammarström, Martin Hallbeck (2024) Amyloid beta 1-40 and 1-42 fibril ratios and maturation level cause conformational differences with minimal impact on autophagy and cytotoxicity Journal of Neurochemistry, Vol. 168, p. 3308-3322 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

Research

About me

CV

University Degree

  • Master of Science (medicine)
  • Medical Doctor

Doctoral thesis

  • 2000, Neurobiology, Linköping University (LiU) “Peptidergic projections from the rat paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus to the spinal cord.”

Current position

  • Associate Professor, Linköping University
  • Senior Consultant Anatomical Pathology, focus on Neuropathology and Molecular Pathology, Linköping University hospital
  • Head of Anatomical Pathology, Linköping University hospital

Teaching Programme

  • Medicine

Awards

  • The Swedish Alzheimer Fundation’s large research prize, 2015
  • Eric K. Fernström’s prize to young, highly promising and successful researcher, 2013

Hallbeck Lab in Social Media

Organisation