[Illustration: Jolygon/iStock]
Recipients of this year’s Rainwater Prize for outstanding innovation and groundbreaking early-career scientist in neurodegenerative disease research are Fort Worth-based Rainwater Charitable, one of the largest independent funders of neurodegenerative disease research Published by the Foundation.
According to the Foundation, this year’s Outstanding Innovation Award is worth $400,000 and will go to the following teams: Dr. Don W. Cleveland, University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Timothy M. Miller, University of Washington. The Foundation has announced that it will award her $200,000 Rainwater Prize to innovative early-career scientists to Dr. Susanne Wegmann of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE).
“We couldn’t be more excited about this year’s Rainwater Award winners,” Todd Rainwater, director of the Rainwater Charitable Foundation, said in a statement. The presentation of the Excellence in Innovation Award to a collaborative group of researchers recognizes the importance of team science.The selection of Dr. Wegmann for this year’s Early Career Award highlights the exciting science happening in Europe and around the world. I know my father is very proud of these scientists and the important progress they have made in their field.
Searching for Breakthrough Treatments for Neurodegenerative Diseases
The Rainwater Charitable Foundation was founded in the early 1990s by Fort Worth billionaire and philanthropist Richard E. Rainwater. It supports a variety of programs in K-12 education, medical research, and other purposes. After Rainwater was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease in his 2009, the foundation created the award for research and treatment of diseases related to the accumulation of tau protein in the brain. In 2019 the rain dried up.
The award will be presented at the Eurotau 2023 Conference on April 27 in Lille, France, the foundation said.
The program recognizes scientific advances towards new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases associated with accumulation of tau protein in the brain, raises awareness of gaps in neurodegenerative research, introduces new researchers to the tauopathy field, Promote scientific discovery by awarding scientific achievements. According to the foundation, it will lead to innovative and effective treatments.
Cleveland, Bennett, Miller and Wegman were nominated based on their published, peer-reviewed research that has made significant contributions to the study of neurodegenerative diseases, the foundation said. Winners were selected on the basis of research quality and applicability to tauopathy, leadership, mentorship, and positive impact within the scientific community.
Rainwater Prize Winner for Outstanding Innovation in Neurodegenerative Disease Research
Bennett, Cleveland and Miller were recognized for their collaborative work over the past two decades to advance antisense technology for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS, Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and tauopathy.
Ionis’ Chief Scientific Officer, Bennett, will continue to advance antisense technology and expand Ionis’ drug discovery platform. He has been working on antisense his oligonucleotides for the past 30 years. Bennett began investigating the potential of antisense technology to develop treatments for ALS and Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) nearly 20 years before him. Nusinersen, the first treatment for SMA, was approved by the FDA in 2016 and is approved in more than 50 countries worldwide. Bennett is working to treat Huntington’s disease, which is in late-stage clinical trials and is leading the discovery and development of other drugs for neurological disorders.
Cleveland, Chair and Distinguished Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, discovered, purified, and determined the properties of the tau protein. paralysis. With Bennett and Miller, he will harness the human nervous system’s gene-silencing technology, which has been studied in seven different clinical trials aimed at treating ALS, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Developed a designer DNA drug.
For more than 20 years, Miller, associate director of research and David Clayson Professor of Neurology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has helped find effective treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and tauopathy. In 2007, he created his ALS Translational Research Program and initiated promising trials to improve the lives of people with neurological disorders. The latest results using his SOD1 ASO, developed with Cleveland and Bennett, show a dramatic effect on delay in SOD1 ALS, the foundation says. His lab led the early stages of development of his BIIB080/IONIS-MAPTRx, an antisense drug that lowers tau mRNA and protein as a treatment for tauopathy.
“This award is an honor and we look forward to using this research funding to advance our next generation of efforts,” Cleveland said in a statement. , will help us continue developing strategies to chronically suppress tau.”
Rainwater Award for Innovative Early Career Scientist
Wegmann, a research group leader at DZNE, is studying the action of tau protein in neurodegenerative diseases by using different experimental models and methodologies to discover normal and malfunctioning tau in diseased brains. I’m here. Wegmann found a way to master the arduous test-tube-to-human leap by examining biochemical, biophysical, and cytological results on postmortem human brain tissue. . Her interest in solving difficult problems led her to a degree in engineering, which later developed into biophysics and tau brain pathology. Wegmann and her group are focused on identifying novel interactions of tau and determining the role of tau phase segregation in Alzheimer’s disease and tauopathy, the foundation said.
“We are very honored! We will use the prize money to further our research into how the tau protein exerts its toxic effects, which is not fully understood.” We don’t yet understand its actual function, and we’re trying to extend our knowledge of its basic biology to help study disease.”
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