The Rainwater Foundation
Virginia Man-Yee Lee and Cristian Lasagna-Reeves.
The Rainwater Charitable Foundation on Thursday announced that a researcher from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine will be awarded its top prize in the area of neurodegenerative disease research.
Virginia Man-Yee Lee of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine has been selected the Rainwater Prize Program’s 2024 Outstanding Innovation in Neurodegenerative Disease Research Prize, officials said in a press release.
With it comes an award of $400,000.
Cristian Lasagna-Reeves of the Indiana University School of Medicine won the Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early-Career Scientist of $200,000.
The awards will be presented during the Tau2024 Global Conference on March 25-26 in Washington, D.C.
“We are pleased to recognize this year's winners of the Rainwater Prizes and their important work which helps uphold Richard E. Rainwater's legacy of advancing the understanding of tauopathies,” said Jeremy Smith, president of The Rainwater Charitable Foundation, in a statement. “We're proud to support their research and provide resources that may contribute to potential future breakthroughs in our understanding of tau.”
The Rainwater Prize Program, now in its fifth year, is designed to support scientific progress toward addressing critical gaps for neurodegenerative diseases associated with the accumulation of the tau protein in the brain.
It also seeks to further scientific discovery by attracting and retaining promising researchers in the field and recognizes and awards scientific achievements that may help lead to innovative, effective treatments for primary tauopathies.
“I'm deeply honored to be recognized in this way and am grateful to use this research funding to further advance neurodegenerative research,” Lee said.
Lee is the John H. Ware 3rd Professor in Alzheimer's Research in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Penn; professor in Alzheimer's Research at the Perelman School of Medicine; director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, and co-director of the Marian S. Ware Center for Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Program.
Lee’s career has spanned decades of discoveries that helped shape awareness and understanding of tau, a protein whose dysregulation is involved in multiple neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, ALS, and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP).
The recognition, Smith said, “highlights her impressive, long-standing dedication to the biology of tau and a focus in researching neurodegenerative disorders.”
Notably, Dr. Lee was one of the first to identify the roles of tau, alpha-synuclein and TAR DNA-binding proteins (TDP-43) in neurodegenerative disorders such as frontotemporal dementia and ALS. Her foundational work helped set forth the opportunity to take an alternative approach to treat neurodegenerative diseases. Her recent work is dedicated to co-pathologies associated with primary tauopathies.
“The award will be incredibly helpful in supporting my team's research into the rare neurodegenerative disease known as PSP, which affects movement, balance and eye function, may shorten a patient's lifespan, and for which no treatments are currently available,” Lee said.
Dr. Lasagna-Reeves’ lab currently focuses on understanding the role of tau in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.
Lasagna-Reeves' paper in Nature Neuroscience was called the "most impactful study published in Alzheimer's research over the preceding two years" at the 2023 Alzheimer's Association International Conference.
“I am honored to receive this award,” Lasagna-Reeves said. “It is one of the most important achievements of my career. I feel very excited because my career has focused on the study of neurodegenerative diseases with a special emphasis in tauopathies. This recognition of the years of hard work has been a great motivator for both myself and the people in my lab."
Lasagna-Reeves is an associate professor at Indiana University School of Medicine and investigator at Stark Neuroscience Research Institute.
“Dr. Lasagna-Reeves winning this year's Early-Career Prize recognizes the scientific discoveries that could lead to a potential new therapeutic approach for tauopathies,” Smith said.