Assistant Prof. Jenny Rauch has received a $100,000 CurePSP Pathway Grant to continue her research on Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) and Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD).
PSP and CBD are rare, but debilitating, neurological diseases that currently don’t have a cure. Part of what makes them so challenging to treat is a general lack of knowledge around how these diseases work, and how little we know about why certain brain cells are affected while others are not.
The Rauch lab aims to understand the earliest steps of the disease - specifically, how harmful Tau protein starts to build up in different types of brain cells, and why this process unfolds differently in PSP and CBD. To achieve these goals they are developing novel cellular and mouse models to better understand how PSP and CBD Tau strains function within specific brain cell types—particularly neurons and glia—to initiate and propagate disease.
“By creating new, more accurate models of these diseases in the lab, we’re working to identify the key triggers of brain cell damage and discover what makes some cells more vulnerable than others,” says Rauch. “Ultimately, our goal is to use this knowledge to find new ways to detect the disease earlier, understand it better, and pave the way for treatments that target the root causes—not just the symptoms. We hope our research brings us closer to a future where these diseases can be slowed, stopped, or even prevented.”
CurePSP is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the awareness, care, and cure for PSP and CBD.