Graduate Program for Neuroscience (GPN)<\/a> in 2021 and successfully defended her dissertation in March 2026. During her time in GPN, her research revolved around using machine learning and artificial intelligence to study Alzheimer\u2019s disease, with the goal of advancing precision medicine approaches.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nLauber\u2019s main project uses a pioneering machine learning and computational neuroscience modeling approach to quantify how amyloid burden influences the emergence and efficiency of tau spreading. Amyloid burden is the first pathology to occur in Alzheimer\u2019s disease, while tau is the second pathology that causes cognitive decline and widespread damage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cFor a long time, we\u2019ve known that there is this synergistic relationship between the two pathologies,\u201d Lauber said. \u201cBut a lot of this evidence came from mice or cells. This was the first time, quantitatively, that we have shown in living human brain scans that this suspected mechanism is in action.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nWhile many neuroimaging studies have small sample sizes, Lauber\u2019s project used data from over 800 patients. This project was the first large-scale and quantitative confirmation in humans that tau becomes more efficient in the presence of a higher whole brain amyloid burden.<\/span><\/p>\nLauber\u2019s drive to study neurodegenerative disease is personal. As a teenager, Lauber\u2019s maternal grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s, and witnessing her mother act as a primary caregiver motivated Lauber to work in this area. Several years later as an undergraduate student, Lauber began researching neurodegenerative movement disorders, an interest sparked by her paternal grandmother experiencing polio-associated neurodegeneration as she aged. At the time, Lauber felt keenly aware that she herself was the same age her grandmother had been when she was infected with polio from a tainted batch of vaccines and spent months in an iron lung, becoming a survivor of what would be known as the 1955 Cutter Incident. The incident is considered one of the worst public health disasters in the US pharmaceutical industry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cMy passion as a researcher has been fundamentally shaped by these first-hand experiences of the impact on patients and their families, which only further motivated me to bridge the gap between disease biology and public health impact,\u201d Lauber said. \u201cStarting my PhD, I felt very motivated to see so much happening in terms of Alzheimer\u2019s innovation, even compared to 10 years ago when my grandmother was going through her dementia diagnosis and treatment.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nLauber hopes to continue her work using this model and its applications to ongoing Alzheimer\u2019s clinical efforts to intervene early and preserve as much brain health as possible. The model is also applicable to any tau-driven disease, such as frontotemporal dementia, Down syndrome and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Lauber feels grateful for open data sharing initiatives, both at BU and in general, that have continued to shape her research.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAs Lauber advances into the next stage of her career, she urges women entering STEM spaces to recognize the value of their voices and their right to take up space.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cDon\u2019t doubt your right to be in that room,\u201d Lauber said. \u201cDon\u2019t doubt your right to belong there, and don\u2019t doubt the worth of your perspective.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nRead about our other Outstanding Student Achievement Award winners here!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meagan V. Lauber PhD in Computational Neuroscience Lauber matriculated into the Graduate Program for Neuroscience (GPN) in 2021 and successfully defended her dissertation in March 2026. During her time in GPN, her research revolved around using machine learning and artificial intelligence to study Alzheimer\u2019s disease, with the goal of advancing precision medicine approaches.\u00a0 Lauber\u2019s main […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20706,"featured_media":107443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[54,7074,1534],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107456"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20706"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107456"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107471,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107456\/revisions\/107471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Meagan V. Lauber<\/b><\/h3>\n