Sean T Sweeney

STS established as a PI with a lectureship position in York in 2004. From his PhD, he has focused on membrane trafficking events at the synapse and regulation of synaptic growth in the context of neurodegeneration. Key studies include identification of the function of synaptic SNARE protein n-syb via expression the tetanus toxin light chain (Sweeney et al., 1995, Broadie et al., 1995), the role of Dap160 in regulating endocytosis and synapse scaffolding (Marie, et al., 2003), functional role of the interaction between synaptotagmin and endocytosis machinery (Poskanzer et al., 2004) and the discovery of the novel membrane transporter protein spinster as a regulator of synapse growth (Sweeney and Davis, 2002). Recent work has focused on the role of endosomal dysfunction and oxidative stress in the growth regulation of the synapse (Milton et al., 2011, Oswald et al., 2018) and on ESCRT dysfunction in a Frontotemporal Dementia model (Ahmad et al., 2009, Lu et al., 2013, West et al., 2015, West et al., 2018) . STS has made major contributions to our understanding of conserved membrane traffic and synaptic transmission pathways using a non-vertebrate model.