The Fred Glavan/Lee Gallagher Family Memorial Grant

Contributed by: The Glavan and Gallagher families

This grant was established in 2022.

Research Grants Supported

Maria Letizia Barreca, PhD

Grant Title:
Blocking the Neurotoxic Activities of Mutant Prion Proteins by a Novel Class of Therapeutic Agents

Location:
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (DPS), University of Perugia-Italy

Grant Year: 2022

Dr. Thomas Cunningham and Elizabeth Hill

Grant Title:
Generation of Humanised STX6 Overexpression Mice to Study Prion Disease Genetic Risk and as a Model for Therapeutic Intervention

Location:
MRC Prion Unit at UCL, Institute of Prion Diseases, London

Grant Year: 2023

Joaquín Castilla, PhD

Grant Title:
Exploring the efficacy of dominant negative protein-based gene therapy for different prion diseases: in vivo proof-of-concept study
Location:
Center for Cooperative Research in Biosciences (CIC bioGUNE), Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Derio, Spain

Grant Year: 2024

Qingzhong Kong, PhD

Grant Title:
Development of ADAM8-based Gene Therapy for CJD

Location:
NPDPSC, Case Western Reserve University

Grant Year: 2024

Jose Andres Alepuz Guillen, PhD

Grant Title: Characterization of synaptic abnormalities in iPSC-derived neurons from E200K carriers

Location: Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Grant Year: 2025

Szymon W. Manka, PhD

Grant Title: Engineering human cells to propagate fluorescent prions for live monitoring of prion infection and high-resolution in situ prion structure determination

Location: Imperial College London, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Infectious Disease,
Synthetic and Structural Biology Section

Grant Year: 2025

Joel Watts, PhD

Grant Title: Engineered biosensors for improved prion detection

Location: Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases and Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto

Grant Year: 2025

Gianluigi Zanusso, MD, PhD

Grant Title: Multi-center assessment of olfactory swab procedure performed by non-otolaryngologists for improving and simplifying human prion disease diagnosis

Location: Department of Neuroscience, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy

Grant Year: 2025