BUSM’s Wolozin Receives Alzheimer’s Association Zenith Fellows Award
Benjamin Wolozin, MD, PhD, professor of pharmacology and neurology, was awarded the Alzheimer’s Association Zenith Fellows Award, a $450,000 grant dispersed over three years. Initiated in 1991, the award provides support for cutting edge basic science or biomedical research that addresses fundamental problems related to early detection, etiology pathogenesis, treatment and/or prevention of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
The Wolozin Lab won the award with its proposal “It Takes TIA to Tangle: The Role of RNA Binding Proteins in AD.” The lab already has discovered a RNA binding protein that induces tau misfolding, one of the essential steps that leads to cognitive loss in AD. This award will allow the Wolozin Lab to experimentally induce the misfolding, investigate the factors that regulate the misfolding and in the future, potentially design therapeutics to prevent the misfolding.
“Dr. Wolozin’s investigation represents the exciting and promising research that is very much needed if we are to eventually find effective treatments for Alzheimer’s. For the more than five million Americans with Alzheimer’s, we are pleased to be a partner in that work,” said Jim Wessler, president/CEO Alzheimer’s Association, MA/NH Chapter.