Innovation Grant Projects

Exercise improves cognition and protects against age-associated neurodegenerative diseases, but further research is needed to understand exactly how this occurs. This project aims to pave the way for therapeutics that can capture the benefits of exercise for promoting brain resilience.

Inflammation is a hallmark of brain aging, yet the source of inflammation in the old brain — and how to eliminate it — is unknown. This team aims to provide insight on how inflammation affects the aging brain that could potentially lead to the generation of new therapies to promote brain resilience.

This team aims to define how and why protein production breaks down in aging cells, leading to disease. This research may lead to new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches against neurodegenerative diseases and potentially aging itself.

This project will explore whether amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) result from immune cells attacking altered neurons. The team aims to pioneer the use of engineered immune cells as therapies for neurodegenerative disorders.

This team will investigate whether a decline in intestinal immune cell metabolism drives age-related inflammation and cognitive decline. By replacing aged intestinal macrophages with metabolically healthy ones, they hope to develop a novel approach to enhance cognitive resilience.

This project aims to identify how mutant peripheral immune cells that invade the brain might actually reduce Alzheimer’s disease risk. The research will explore how to mimic these cells’ resilience-promoting effects to design new Alzheimer’s therapies.