My general research interest is extending the healthspan of aging people. Healthspan describes the length of time individuals are disease free. Neurons are some of the longest living cells in a person’s body and often become dysfunctional with age. Improving our knowledge about why neurons become dysfunctional with age may help delay the onset of age-related disease and alleviate age-relative dysfunction. An understudied phenomenon that occurs with the aging brain is the accumulation of polyploid cells. Polyploidy in the brain is observed in numerous species and is correlated with aging and disease. However, the role polyploid cells have in the aging brain and their contribution to disease is not well understood. I am examining the causes of consequences of polyploid cells in the aging brain utilizing Drosophila.

1. Zappia MP, Damschroder D, Westacott A, Wessells RJ, Frolov MV. The RU486-dependent activation of the GeneSwitch system in adult muscles leads to severe adverse effects in Drosophila. G3 (Bethesda). 2024 Feb 26:jkae039. doi: 10.1093/g3journal/jkae039. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38409337.

2. Valerian E Kagan, Yulia Y Tyurina, Karolina Mikulska-Ruminska, Deena Damschroder, … & Greenberg ML. (2023). Anomalous peroxidase activity of cytochrome c is the primary pathogenic target in Barth syndrome. Accepted Nature Metabolism.

3. Ji J, Damschroder D, Bessert D, Lazcano P, Wessells R, Reynolds CA, Greenberg ML. (2022). NAD supplementation improves mitochondrial performance of cardiolipin mutants. Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Cell Biol Lipids. 2022 Apr;1867(4):159094.

4.       Damschroder, D., Zapata-Pérez,  R., Houtkooper,R., Wessells, R., (2022). Stimulating the sir2-pgc-1α axis rescues exercise capacity and mitochondrial respiration in  Drosophila tafazzin mutants. Disease Models and Mechanisms 15(10), dm049279.

 5.       Cobb, T., Damschroder, D., & Wessells, R. (2021). Sestrin regulates acute chill coma recovery in Drosophila melanogaster. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 103548.       

6.        Damschroder, D., Richardson, K., Cobb, T., & Wessells, R. (2020). The effects of genetic background on exercise performance in Drosophila. Fly, 14(1-4), 80-92.

7.         Xu, P., Damschroder, D., Zhang, M., Ryall, K. A., Adler, P. N., Saucerman, J. J., ... & Yan, Z. (2019). Atg2, Atg9 and Atg18 in mitochondrial integrity, cardiac function and healthspan in Drosophila. Journal of molecular and cellular cardiology, 127, 116-124.

8.          Damschroder, D., Cobb, T., Sujkowski, A., & Wessells, R. (2018). Drosophila endurance training and assessment of its effects on systemic adaptations. Bio-protocol, 8(19), e3037-e3037.

9.         Damschroder, D., Reynolds, C., Wessells, R., (2018) Drosophila tafazzin mutants have impaired exercise  capacity. Physiology reports, (6)3.