Ken Nakamura, MD, PhD, is a movement disorders neurologist and a neurobiologist with expertise in bioenergetics. He has a long-standing interest in the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative diseases, especially Parkinson’s disease. Using an array of imaging, cell engineering and screening approaches, his laboratory at Gladstone Institutes studies the physiology of mitochondria and energy metabolism in the brain and explores how changes in neural activity selectively impact cells’ vulnerability to damage. His group delineated new mechanisms of mitochondrial quality control in neurons and identified genes and pathways regulating energy levels, including defining the “ATPome” and delineating the neuronal requirement for glucose. These findings have implications for cellular energy control mechanisms in diverse physiologic processes and human diseases. Dr. Nakamura aims to understand how disrupting mitochondrial functions, neural activity and metabolism impacts the function and survival of susceptible neuronal populations and to use these insights to develop new approaches to target neurodegeneration therapeutically.