The Lynda Morris Memorial Grant
Contributed by: David Morris and Family
This grant was established in 2019.
Prion diseases are fatal and currently untreatable neurodegenerative diseases of humans and animals. The central event underlying these diseases is the 3D conversion of the prion protein (PrPC) to a pathogenic shape, denoted PrPSc. It is often said that to understand a person, one should look at the company they keep. This is also true of proteins, as their interaction networks, or interactomes, define their functions. Although some information is available about the cellular partners of PrPC, almost nothing is known about the interaction network of PrPSc. Here, we propose to examine the PrPSc interactome for the first time, providing a wealth of new targets for therapeutic intervention.
Robert C.C. Mercer, Ph.D.
Instructor, Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine
Dr. Mercer has over 10 years of experience in the prion field. First as a PhD student at the Centre for Prions and Protein Folding diseases at the University of Alberta under the tutelage of Dr. David Westaway and later as a Postdoctoral Associate and now Instructor at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine in the laboratory of Dr. David A. Harris. His work has focused primarily on the function of PrPC, modeling genetic forms of prion disease in mice, and the discovery and characterization of prion disease therapeutics.
Contributed by: David Morris and Family
This grant was established in 2019.
Contributed by: Kandi Ziccardi
Established in 2023.
Contributed by: Mike McElmurray
Established in 2023.
Contributed by: Tom Fabian
Established in 2021.
Contributed by: Pamela Fear and Family.
Established in 2019.
Contributed by: William Haggerty
Established in 2019.
This website was made possible by a generous donation from Cookie Stivison, in memory of her husband Tom Stivison, and a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
