Catherine Cook Kaczorowski is an associate professor at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, where she holds the Evnin Family Chair in Alzheimer’s Research. Her research focus is to identify early causative events that underlie cognitive deficits associated with “normal” aging and Alzheimer’s disease. Using multidisciplinary approaches that combine systems genetics with innovative high-resolution and high-throughput membrane proteomics, viral-based gene transduction approaches, behavioral assays, in vitro brain slice electrophysiology and in vivo electrophysiological recordings in freely behaving mice, her research seeks to identify and understand how genetic factors and misregulated membrane proteins in the hippocampus of aging and AD mouse models alter hippocampal neuron excitability, functional connectivity of hippocampal neural networks, and memory.

Selected Publications

• Ouellette AR, Neuner SM, Dumitrescu L, Anderson LC, Gatti DM, Mahoney ER, Bubier JA, Churchill G, Peters L, Huentelman MJ, Herskowitz JH, Yang HS, Smith AN, Reitz C, Kunkle BW, White CC, De Jager PL, Schneider JA, Bennett DA, Seyfried NT; Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium, Chesler EJ, Hadad N, Hohman TJ, Kaczorowski CC. Cross-Species Analyses Identify Dlgap2 as a Regulator of Age-Related Cognitive Decline and Alzheimer’s Dementia. Cell Rep. 2020 Sep 1;32(9):108091. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.108091. PMID: 32877673; PMCID: PMC7502175.
• Gene-by-environment interactions in Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Dunn AR, O’Connell KMS, Kaczorowski CC. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2019 Aug;103:73-80. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.06.018. Epub 2019 Jun 14. Review. PMID: 31207254
• Harnessing Genetic Complexity to Enhance Translatability of Alzheimer’s Disease Mouse Models: A Path toward Precision Medicine. Neuner SM, Heuer SE, Huentelman MJ, O’Connell KMS, Kaczorowski CC. Neuron. 2019 Feb 6;101(3):399-411.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2018.11.040. Epub 2018 Dec 27. PMID: 30595332
• Knockdown of heterochromatin protein 1 binding protein 3 recapitulates phenotypic, cellular, and molecular features of aging. Neuner SM, Ding S, Kaczorowski CC. Aging Cell. 2019 Feb;18(1):e12886. doi: 10.1111/acel.12886. Epub 2018 Dec 13. PMID: 30549219
• Systems genetics identifies Hp1bp3 as a novel modulator of cognitive aging. Neuner SM, Garfinkel BP, Wilmott LA, Ignatowska-Jankowska BM, Citri A, Orly J, Lu L, Overall RW, Mulligan MK, Kempermann G, Williams RW, O’Connell KM, Kaczorowski CC. Neurobiol Aging. 2016 Oct;46:58-67. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2016.06.008. Epub 2016 Jun 17. PMID: 27460150
• Cell-Type-Specific Changes in Intrinsic Excitability in the Subiculum following Learning and Exposure to Novel Environmental Contexts. Dunn AR, Neuner SM, Ding S, Hope KA, O’Connell KMS, Kaczorowski CC. eNeuro. 2019 Jan 4;5(6). pii: ENEURO.0484-18.2018. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0484-18.2018. eCollection 2018 Nov-Dec. PMID: 30627661
• Targeting the endothelial progenitor cell surface proteome to identify novel mechanisms that mediate angiogenic efficacy in a rodent model of vascular disease. Kaczorowski CC, Stodola TJ, Hoffmann BR, Prisco AR, Liu PY, Didier DN, Karcher JR, Liang M, Jacob HJ, Greene AS. Physiol Genomics. 2013 Nov 1;45(21):999-1011. doi: 10.1152/physiolgenomics.00097.2013. Epub 2013 Sep 10. PMID: 24022221
• Mechanisms underlying basal and learning-related intrinsic excitability in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. Kaczorowski CC, Sametsky E, Shah S, Vassar R, Disterhoft JF. Neurobiol Aging. 2011 Aug;32(8):1452-65. doi: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2009.09.003. Epub 2009 Oct 14. PMID: 19833411
• Memory deficits are associated with impaired ability to modulate neuronal excitability in middle-aged mice. Kaczorowski CC, Disterhoft JF. Learn Mem. 2009 May 23;16(6):362-6. doi: 10.1101/lm.1365609. Print 2009 Jun. PMID: 19470651
• Regulation of intrinsic excitability: Roles for learning and memory, aging and Alzheimer’s disease, and genetic diversity. Dunn AR, Kaczorowski CC. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2019 Oct;164:107069. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2019.107069. Epub 2019 Aug 20. PMID: 31442579
• Genetic background modifies CNS-mediated sensorimotor decline in the AD-BXD mouse model of genetic diversity in Alzheimer’s disease. O’Connell KMS, Ouellette AR, Neuner SM, Dunn AR, Kaczorowski CC. Genes Brain Behav. 2019 Nov;18(8):e12603. doi: 10.1111/gbb.12603. Epub 2019 Aug 19. PMID: 31381246

CV

Link to CV

Dissertation Students

Andrew Ouellette

Brianna Gurdon