Dr. Ronit Ilouz Receives BSF (United States Israel Binational Foundation) Grant

Dr. Ronit Ilouz's lab has given a new name to a unique neurodegenerative disease: NLPD-PKA. The Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms Regulated by Kinases in Health and Disease laboratory headed by Dr. Ronit Ilouz researches mechanisms leading to a unique inherited neurodegenerative disease, and has given it the name NLPD-PKA. The disease develops in patients with a specific genetic mutation in the protein, which leads to the formation of protein clusters in the brain, similar to other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

The grant, which is a significant achievement for the lab and Dr. Ilouz, is in collaboration with Dr. Rodrigo Maillard from Georgetown University in the USA. The two laboratories will combine their knowledge and focus on the cellular and molecular effects of the mutation on the brain, while discovering the mechanisms leading to the disease, with the aim of finding solutions for it and common diseases that share a common denominator.

The added advantage of the joint work of the two laboratories in Israel and the USA is in the combination of knowledge and expertise from a variety of fields.