Her focus is on cholesterol metabolism, particularly in the central nervous system, and she has worked to identify the connection between the cholesterol transport molecule ABCA1 in glial cells and the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. In current work she is testing whether deficiency or overexpression of ABCA1 affects Alzheimer's disease in vivo. She is also investigating the role that the cholesterol transporter ABCG1 may play in causing the inheritance of an extra copy of chromosome 21 in individuals with Down syndrome.