Dr. Alnemri's research is focused on apoptosis execution and regulation.
Apoptosis is executed by a recently discovered family of cysteine proteases named caspases.
Caspases have two unique features that distinguish them from other mammalian cysteine proteases. They all cleave their substrates following aspartate residues, and their activation requires cleavage following aspartate residues located in highly conserved processing sites between their large and small subunits and in their prodomains. These features suggest that caspases are capable of autoactivation and activation of each other in a protease cascade fashion analogous to the blood complement activation cascade. Based on work by Alnemri and others, it is currently established that a molecular order responsible for sequential activation of caspases does exist in vivo. Currently Alnemri is involved in identification, cloning and characterization of novel apoptotic caspases and regulators.