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Grant Award

Benjamin Wolozin, MD, PhD, Receives Award to Help Decode Mechanisms of Parkinson’s Disease

Benjamin L. Wolozin, MD, PhD, professor of anatomy & neurobiology, is part of an international consortium of five scientists who were awarded a three-year $8.8M award from Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP), in partnership with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF). The consortium, which includes scientists from the U.S., Luxemburg, Germany, and led by the Biomedical Research Foundation Academy of Athens, Greece, will examine the contribution of RNA binding proteins, RNA metabolism and membraneless organelles (stress granules) to the pathology and co-pathologies of Parkinson disease (PD).

Wolozin and his team will join the ASAP Collaborative Research Network (CRN), an international, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional network working to address high-priority research questions about Parkinson’s disease. They will image membraneless organelles and determine their composition over time as pathology evolves. They will also test the actions of a novel compound, termed AQV-3 (developed by Wolozin’s company, Aquinnah Pharmaceuticals, Inc.), that can break up the toxic pathology that occurs in PD. This compound was designed to remove one of the co-pathologies, TDP-43, but the team will also examine the actions of AQV-3 towards classic PD pathologies.

“AQV-3 is able to break up protein aggregates that contain cross-linked cysteines, a type of amino acid. Breaking up these cross-links can potentially delay disease progression,” explains Wolozin. The team will use two different model systems for their studies: human midbrain organoids that contain mutations linked to PD and develop PD pathology, and an experimental model of PD.

Wolozin has extensive research experience in the field of neurodegenerative disease, investigating the pathophysiology of several neurodegenerative diseases in addition to PD, including Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. His research examines molecular and cellular aspects of disease and he has extensive experience in molecular neuropathology.

He completed his undergraduate education at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and earned his MD and PhD degrees from Albert Einstein College of Medicine as part of the Medical Scientist Training Program. His postdoctoral fellowships were spent at Mount Sinai Medical Center and the National Institute of Mental Health. He joined Loyola University Medical Center in 1996 as an associate professor, rising to the rank of tenured full professor before coming to Boston University in 2004 as a professor. He also has secondary positions in the department of neurology and the department of pharmacology, physiology and biophysics and is associated with the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, the Program in Neuroscience, the Neurophotonics Center and the Chemical Imaging Initiative.

Wolozin has received numerous awards for his research including the Donald B. Lindsley Prize, Society for Neuroscience, the A. E. Bennett Award from the Society for Biological Psychiatry, the Zenith award from the Alzheimer Association and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served on numerous editorial boards, including for the Journal of Biological Chemistry and Neurodegenerative Diseases. Wolozin has also contributed to and chaired numerous federal and foundation grant review committees. Later this year he will co-chair the Tau Global Conference 2026 in Washington, D.C.

ASAP is a global research initiative centered on accelerating scientific advances in Parkinson’s disease research, moving from clinical observation to biological definition to shift how we define, detect, and treat neurodegeneration. To implement its programs, it is working with MJFF, which is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease through an aggressively funded research agenda and to ensuring the development of improved therapies for those living with Parkinson’s today.