Renzo Mancuso

Renzo Mancuso is a Group Leader at the VIB-Center for Molecular Neurology and Associate Professor at the University of Antwerp. His research focuses on understanding how microglia— the brain’s resident immune cells—contribute to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Dr Mancuso’s lab explores a range of biological processes, including functional genomics, epigenetics, endolysosomal function, and cell-to-cell communication. A big part of the work involves building and applying human-relevant models, such as iPSC-derived microglia and human microglia xenografts in mice, to study how genetics shapes microglial behavior in disease contexts. Some of Dr. Mancuso’s major contributions have been showing that human microglia respond very differently to amyloid pathology compared to mouse models, and that key AD risk genes like APOE and TREM2 play an important role in shaping these responses. In ALS, his lab has also shown that C9orf72 repeat expansions can impair microglial function by disrupting the endolysosomal system—pointing to a previously underappreciated mechanism of disease. Looking ahead, Dr. Mancuso’s team is using these powerful tools to better understand how microglial dysfunction contributes to disease and to identify new opportunities for biomarkers and therapeutic targets.