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Associate Professor Jason Howitt is a neuroscientist who has been working in the exosome field for over 15 years. He has invented methods for loading exosomes with specific proteins for delivery in vivo. Using these methods he has found that exosomes can functionally traffic across the blood-brain barrier and into neurons in the brain. His work has also discovered the loading of the major tumor suppressor protein, PTEN, into exosomes, as well as how ubiquitin is involved in trafficking proteins into exosomes.

Currently, Jason’s primary research investigates the initiation of Parkinson’s disease in the brain. His team has discovered a new pathway in which exosomes can traffic the protein alpha-synuclein in the brain. He currently is the Research Director at Swinburne University in the School of Health Sciences, and has held positions at Brookhaven National Laboratory (New York), Imperial College (London), and the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health (Melbourne).