Saranna Fanning

Dr. Saranna Fanning is an Instructor in Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She received her undergraduate BSc degree from the National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC) and performed her doctoral research work at Columbia University, NY, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh and the National University of Ireland, Cork (Degree awarding University).

Dr. Fanning’s PhD research focused on cell surface regulation in prokaryotes (bacterial exopolysaccharides) and eukaryotes (Candida albicans biofilms). Dr. Fanning performed her postdoctoral training in the lab of Dr. Susan Lindquist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, MA, where she further developed her expertise in yeast proteotoxicity models, protein folding and cellular mechanisms of protein homeostasis relating to Parkinson’s disease.

Dr. Fanning joined the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases in 2017. Her work focuses on understanding complex genetic interactions impacting disease protein toxicity in Parkinson’s disease using genetic and biochemical approaches. Specifically, her work is dedicated to understanding the role of the metabolome in α-synuclein toxicity in yeast models, mammalian models and patient iPSCs.