ARI’s Neurobiology Lab Winning Presentations

Congratulations to Dr Anthony Cutrupi on receiving the award for Best Postdoctoral presentation and Ally Boyling receiving the award for Best PhD Student presentation at the NSW Australian Society of Stem Cell Research (ASSCR) meeting held last Friday at Westmead Hospital.

Both the presentations were about using motor neurons derived from re-programmed patient skin cells, as a tool to understand how large DNA re-arrangements (ranging from 1000s to millions of base pairs in size and AKA structural variation) can cause degeneration of nerves in different forms of inherited neuropathies (CMTX3 and DHMN1). To solve this problem it is important to have the appropriate neuronal tissue that carries the DNA re-arrangements and both Anthony and Ally presented powerful motor neuron models for finding therapeutic targets that explain the underlying cause of neurodegeneration in these families.

This is such a great outcome for both Anthony, Ally and the lab as well, we look forward to hearing more.