April Darling was a postdoctoral researcher in the lab from September 2019 to August 2021. She received her Ph.D. in molecular medicine from the University of South Florida. During her time there, she studied the aggregation and phase-separation behavior of intrinsically disordered proteins involved in neurodegenerative diseases and how that behavior can be modulated with chaperone proteins. During her free time, April enjoys hiking, kayaking, and spending time with her dogs. In 2020, April was awarded a Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the American Parkinson Disease Association. April went on to become a Senior Scientist at Lacerta Therapeutics.

Publications

Darling A.L., J. Dahrendorff, S.G. Creodore, C.A. Dickey, L.J. Blair, and V.N. Uversky. (2021). Small heat shock protein 22kDa can modulate the aggregation and liquid-liquid phase separation behavior of Tau. Protein Sci. doi: 10.1002/pro.4060. pdf file link

Darling, A.L., and J. Shorter. (2021). Combating deleterious phase transitions in neurodegenerative disease. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta. 1868(5):118984. pdf file link

Darling, A.L., and J. Shorter. (2020). Atomic structures of amyloid-β oligomers illuminate a neurotoxic mechanism. Trends Neurosci. 43(10):740-743. pdf file link

Webster, J. M., A.L. Darling, T.A. Sanders, D.M. Blazier, Y. Vidal-Aguiar, D. Beaulieu-Abdelahad, D.G. Plemmons, S.E. Hill, V.N. Uversky, P.C. Bickford, C.A. Dickey, and L. J. Blair. (2020). Hsp22 with an N-terminal domain truncation mediates a reduction in tau protein levels. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 21(15):5442. pdf file link

Webster, J. M., A.L. Darling, V.N. Uversky, and L. J. Blair. (2019). Small heat shock proteins, big impact on protein aggregation in neurodegenerative disease. Front. Pharmacol. 10, 1047. pdf file link

Fonin, A. V., A.L. Darling, I.M. Kuznetsova, K.K. Turoverov, and V.N. Uversky. (2019). Multi-functionality of proteins involved in GPCR and G protein signaling: making sense of structure-function continuum with intrinsic disorder-based proteoforms. Cell. Mol. Life Sci.76(22), 4461-4492. pdf file link

Sandusky-Beltran, L.A., A. Kovalenko, C. Ma, J.I.T. Calahatian, D.S. Placides, M.D. Watler, J.B. Hunt, A.L. Darling, J.D. Baker, L.J. Blair, M.D. Martin, S.N. Fontaine, C.A. Dickey, A.L. Lussier, E.J. Weeber, M-L. B. Selenica, K.R. Nash, M.N. Gordon, D. Morgan, and D.C. Lee. (2019). Spermidine/spermine-N1-acetyltransferase ablation impacts tauopathy-induced polyamine stress response. Alzheimers Res. Ther. 11(1):58. pdf file link

Darling, A.L., B.Y. Zaslavsky, and V.N. Uversky. (2019). Intrinsic disorder-based emergence in cellular biology: physiological and pathological liquid-liquid phase transitions in cells. Polymers. 11(6): E990. pdf file link

Turoverov, K.K., I.M. Kuznetsova, A.V. Fonin, A.L. Darling, B.Y. Zaslavsky, and V.N. Uversky. (2019). Stochasticity of biological soft matter: emerging concepts in intrinsically disordered proteins and biological phase separation. Trends Biochem. Sci. 44(8):716-728. pdf file link

Darling, A.L., L.B. Breydo, E.G. Rivas, D. Zheng, J.B. Baker, L.J. Blair, C.A. Dickey, J. Koren, and V.N. Uversky. (2019). Repeated repeat problems: combinatorial effect of C9orf72-derived dipeptide repeat proteins. Int. J. of Biol. Macromol. 127:136-145. pdf file link

Zaslavsky, B.Y., L.A. Ferreira, A.L. Darling, and V.N. Uversky VN. (2018). The solvent side of proteinaceous membrane-less organelles in light of aqueous two-phase systems. Int. J. Biol. Macromol. 117:1224-1251. pdf file link

Fonin, A.V., A.L. Darling, I.M. Kuznetsova, K.K. Turoverov, and V.N. Uversky. (2018). Intrinsically disordered proteins in crowded milieu: when chaos prevails within the cellular gumbo. Cell Mol. Life Sci. 75(21):3907-3929. pdf file link

Sabbagh, J.J., R.A. Cordova, D. Zheng, M. Criado-Marrero, A. Lemus, P. Li, J.D. Baker, B.A. Nordhues, A.L. Darling, C. Martinez-Licha, D.A. Rutz, S. Patel, J. Buchner, J.W. Leahy, J. Koren 3rd, C.A. Dickey, and L.J. Blair. (2018). Targeting the FKBP51/GR/Hsp90 complex to identify functionally relevant treatments for depression and PTSD. ACS Chem. Biol. 13(8):2288-2299. pdf file link

Darling, A.L., and V.N. Uversky. (2018). Intrinsic disorder and posttranslational modifications: the darker side of the biological dark matter. Front. Genet. 9:158. pdf file link

Darling, A.L., and V.N. Uversky. (2017). Intrinsic disorder in proteins with pathogenic repeat expansions. Molecules. 22(12):E2027. pdf file link

Darling, A.L., Y. Liu, C.J. Oldfield, and V.N. Uversky. (2017). Intrinsically disordered proteome of human membrane-less organelles. Proteomics. 18(5-6):e1700193. pdf file link

Baker, J.D., L.B. Shelton, D. Zheng, F. Favretto, B.A. Nordhues, A. Darling, L.E. Sullivan, Z. Sun, P.K. Solanki, M.D. Martin, A. Suntharalingam, J.J. Sabbagh, S. Becker, E. Mandelkow, V.N. Uversky, M. Zweckstetter, C.A. Dickey, J. Koren, and L.J. Blair. (2017). Human cyclophilin 40 unravels neurotoxic amyloids. PLoS Biol. 15(6):e2001336. pdf file link

Zheng, D., J.J. Sabbagh, L.J. Blair, A.L. Darling, X. Wen, and C.A. Dickey. (2016). MicroRNA-511 binds to FKBP5 mRNA, which encodes a chaperone protein, and regulates neuronal differentiation. J. Biol. Chem.291(34):17897-906. pdf file link

Fontaine, S.N., D. Zheng, J.J. Sabbagh, M.D. Martin, D. Chaput, A. Darling, J.H. Trotter, A.R. Stothert, B.A. Nordhues, A. Lussier, J. Baker, L. Shelton, M. Kahn, L.J. Blair, S.M. Stevens Jr, and C.A. Dickey. (2016). DnaJ/Hsc70 chaperone complexes control the extracellular release of neurodegenerative-associated proteins. EMBO J. 35(14):1537-49. pdf file link

Fontaine, S.N., J.J. Sabbagh, J. Baker, C.R. Martinez-Licha, A.L. Darling, and C.A. Dickey. (2015). Cellular factors modulating the mechanism of tau protein aggregation. Cell Mol. Life Sci. 72(10):1863-79. pdf file link

Martin, M.D., L. Calcul, C. Smith, U.K. Jinwal, S.N. Fontaine, A.L. Darling, K. Seeley, L. Wojtas, M. Narayan, J.E. Gestwicki, G.R. Smith, A.B. Reitz, J.B. Baker, and C.A. Dickey. (2015). Synthesis, stereochemical analysis, and derivatization of myricanol provide new probes that promote autophagic tau clearance. ACS Chem. Biol.10(4):1099-109. pdf file link