In this special UK DRI research webinar recording from the 14th Aparil, Professor Sir John Hardy and Professor Valentina Escott-Price present evidence for how failing protein clearance coudld provide the missing link in neurodegeneration, and explore if this this insight could resolve several key questions in the field:
- Why do we often see multiple pathologies in ageing brains?
- Why can the same genetic variants lead to different pathologies?
- Why does disease penetrance vary?
- Why are these conditions so age-dependent?
Their framework suggests that failing protein clearance systems may provide a unifying mechanism for understanding neurodegeneration, with important implications for therapeutic development.
Article reference:
Chaired by UK DRI Emerging Leader, Dr Natalie Connor-Robson (UK DRI at Cardiff).
Learn more:
UK DRI website
Hardy Lab
Escott-Price Lab
Connor-Robson Lab
Speaker & chair bios
Professor Sir John Hardy is Chair of Molecular Biology of Neurological Disease at the UCL Institute of Neurology and a world-leading neurogeneticist based at the UK Dementia Research Institute at UCL. John’s contributions to understanding neurodegenerative diseases have been revolutionary. In 1991, his team discovered the first mutation directly linked to Alzheimer’s disease, which led to the formulation of the highly influential ‘amyloid cascade hypothesis.’ This groundbreaking work laid the foundation for the first disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.His exceptional contributions to science have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Brain Prize, and election as a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 2022, John received a knighthood for his services to human health and dementia research. John also serves as Vice President for Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Professor Valentina Escott-Price, Professor in Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, is from the UK Dementia Research Institute at Cardiff University. Valentina’s academic journey began with a strong foundation in mathematics from St. Petersburg University, followed by a PhD in Statistics from Cardiff University. Her pioneering work in statistical methodology has transformed our understanding of the genetic architecture of neurodegenerative diseases. As a key member of major international consortia including the International Genomics of Alzheimer’s Project and European Alzheimer’s Disease DNA BioBank, Valentina has played a crucial role in identifying new genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease, but her expertise spans across multiple neurodegenerative conditions. Valentina’s work focuses on developing sophisticated methods to identify individuals at high risk of disease using polygenic risk scores, biomarkers, and environmental factors. More recently, she has been leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance disease prediction and patient stratification in large population datasets.
Dr Natalie Connor-Robson received her BSc in Biomedical Sciences from Cardiff University before completing her PhD on the role of the synuclein family in health and disease. In 2014, Dr Connor-Robson joined the Parkinson’s Disease Centre at the University of Oxford as a Career Development Fellow. During this time, she worked on understanding the earliest cellular pathogenic events to occur in Parkinson’s using both rodent models and iPSC-derived dopaminergic neurons. Her work highlighted the extensive roles of LRRK2 mutations in the endocytic and autophagic pathways as well as examining the role of GBA in Parkinson’s. In 2021, Natalie was awarded an ARUK Research Fellowship and joined the UK DRI as an Emerging Leader and in 2024 received an ARUK Senior Research Fellowship.
UK DRI
Dementia Researcher
