Margaret Ethel Jew winner announced
Dr Rachel Tan
Rachel is a FightMND mid-career research fellow whose research focuses on TDP-43 mediated neurodegeneration, which prevails in almost two-thirds of patients with dementia.
The project employs methodologies in neuropathology and molecular biology to understand this in patients.
Dr Tan’s research into TDP-43 has developed a novel framework for the pathological prediction of clinical profiles in patients with TDP-43 proteinopathies and assessed the accuracy of current imaging and clinical markers of pathobiology. It was the first to provide human evidence that reduction of ATXN2 is a promising strategy to reduce TDP-43 pathology.
Rachel Tan’s most recently published paper showed pathological evidence that the FDA-approved drug for ALS, riluzole, is a potential therapeutic intervention for Alzheimer’s disease, and can be read in the academic journal Brain.
The Margaret Ethel Jew Fund will enable Rachel’s team to progress current understanding of disease pathogenesis in dementia.
“It is a privilege to be able to put this stipend towards much-needed work in the field of neurodegeneration."
The Margaret Ethel Jew Fund started in 2019 from Eleanor and Ian Jew, who generously donated $100,000 in memory of Margaret Ethel Jew for dementia research at the Brain and Mind Centre. This annual stipend of $5000 is designed to support research into the causes, treatments and prevention of dementia.
Applications for this fund open in the first quarter of every year to researchers at the Brain and Mind Centre.
Past winners include; David Foxe and Zac Chatterton.