Luke A Miles MD

Dr. Luke Miles has led a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia -funded laboratory since 2008 at St. Vincent's Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Miles is also an Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne. His lab is dedicated to understanding the function and processing of the amyloid precursor protein (APP), and mechanisms of promoting clearance of pathological species that drive Alzheimer's disease (AD). This work relies on biophysical methods of investigation including solution state NMR, 3D-structure determination by X-ray crystallography and small angle X-ray scattering, kinetic measurements, circular dichroism and fluorimetry. Such data informs experiments in vivo supported by collaboration with neuroscientists at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne. Dr. Miles gained expertise in recombinant protein expression, purification and biophysical analysis as a postdoctoral fellow at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and as a Japan Society Promotion of Science Fellow at Tokyo Metropolitan University. Dr. Miles solved one of the first anti-amyloid-antibody atomic structures reported in 2008 and has since solved more than half a dozen AD-related antibody complex structures including the most developed immunotherapy candidate, bapineuzumab. These structures form the templates for an antibody engineering program to develop immunotherapies with high affinity and exquisite specificity for different structures of both the amyloid beta peptide and the downstream related biomarker, hyperphosphorylated Tau protein. This work has attracted competitive funding from the Mason Foundation, the Bethlehem Griffith Research Foundation and the Wicking Trust.