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Structural characterization of a motor-neuron disease related protein complex

Cassandra Hayne
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Gabriel Carmona Rosas
Postdoctoral Scholar

A Pilot grant for a new lab is very impactful because it allows us to explore something that we don't otherwise have funding to explore and to really give us time to focus on it.

Cassandra Hayne, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

The Pilot award is allowing us to expand our work in new directions on proteins that have a lot of relevance to what we're already doing.

Gabriel Carmona-Rosas, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar


AGE-seq: Antibody-Guided RNA Editing and Sequencing to Identify RNA-binding Protein Targets

Xiaochang Zhang
Assistant Professor of Human Genetics
Xiangbin Ruan
Postdoctoral Scholar

The Pilot Award will boost our research and Xiangbin's career, presenting a great opportunity to collaborate with local experts on motor neuron diseases.

Xiaoxhang Zhang, PHD
Assistant Professor of Human Genetics

The award will propel my career as an international postdoctoral researcher, aiding our development of technology to understand RNA-protein interactions in diseases.

Xiangbin Ruan, PHD
Postdoctoral Scholar


Investigating the potential roles of RNA granules in ALS/FTD pathogenesis with GGGGCC repeat expansion of C9ORF72

HENG-CHI LEE
Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology
Jerry Lee
Graduate Student Research Assistant


Computational discovery of risk variants and genes of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Xin He
Associate Professor of Human Genetics
Zicheng WANG
Graduate Student

We are doing a lot of meso development, and we can use these tools and solve some of the mysteries of these diseases. It's a learning opportunity for us to see how these tools work, their limitations, and so that we can maybe develop better tools in the future.

Xin He, PhD
Associate Professor of Human Genetics

It's an important opportunity for us to be part of this community, to have access to different expertise, and to learn about genetics from different angles. It can eventually broaden our research scope.

Zicheng Wand
Graduate Student

Imaging synaptosome organelles and proteins to assay neurodegeneration at synapses

William Green
Professor of Neurobiology
Theron Russell
Postdoctoral Fellow

This has been unfunded until now. It's just been a lot of big ideas that we've slowly tried to apply. But the Pilot Award will let us coalesce into more of a working group.

William Green, PhD
Professor of Neurobiology

We're grateful to the CMND for providing us with these funds because all this research costs money, so it will be a big help.

Theron Russell, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow


Does m6A mRNA methylation protect against or contribute to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis?

Xiaoxi Zhuang
Professor of Neurobiology and Neurology
ZHUOYUE SHI
Postdoctoral Scholar

I've talked to Raymond Ross and Paschalis Kratsios about potential collaborations, and this is the perfect opportunity. We actually have a project to collaborate and work on. And that is the best way to make things happen.

Xiaoxi Zhuang, PhD
Professor of Neurobiology and Neurology

I'm deeply honored to receive this award! It will give me the opportunity to broaden the scope of my doctoral research focusing on m6A mRNA methylation, and to gain a better understanding of neurodegenerative diseases.

Zhuoyue Shi, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar