CurePSP Awards Seven Urso and Atwood Student Fellowships to Rising Tauopathy Researchers

CurePSP has awarded seven Urso and Atwood Student Fellowships to promising researchers investigating progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), corticobasal degeneration (CBD) and related tauopathies. This year's recipients — undergraduates, PhD students and medical trainees — span institutions across North America, Europe and Africa, with projects covering genetic architecture, tau's role beyond the cytoplasm, minimally invasive diagnostics and translational modeling tools.

Building on the record momentum of 2025, which saw nine Urso and Atwood fellowships awarded, this year's projects tackle tauopathy research with a renewed sense of urgency. As budgets tighten and competition for funding increases, these fellowships remain a lasting commitment to the long-term health of the field.

Recipients expressed both gratitude for the opportunity and determination to translate their findings into tangible benefits for those living with these diseases. Robina Afzal, an incoming medical student working under Drs. John Crary and Kurt Farrell at Mount Sinai, is aware that this work would not be possible without brain donation. “The 69 CBD cases in our study represent extraordinary acts of generosity from families who chose to contribute to science during the most difficult of circumstances. We do not take that gift lightly.”

The seven fellowship recipients include four for the Urso Student Fellowship Grant, supported by the Paul and Ruth Urso Memorial Research Fund, for projects focused on basic, translational, clinical or epidemiological aspects of PSP and CBD. In its third year, the Jim Atwood Neuroscience Student Fellowship, supported by the Jim Atwood Neuroscience Student Fellowship Endowment, was awarded to three undergraduate student projects focused on PSP or CBD. Learn more about select cutting-edge studies and the researchers driving them forward:

Mapping the Molecular Signature of PSP | Félix-Antoine Ladrie, Université de Montréal

Félix-Antoine Ladrie's project combines proteomic and transcriptomic approaches — among the first efforts to pair the two — to search for a biological signature specific to PSP using cells isolated from patient skin biopsies. Preliminary data from his lab already show molecular changes in these peripheral cells tied to cell function and survival, changes he'll investigate further this summer. A validated signature could open the door to earlier, more accurate diagnosis and new therapeutic targets.

“Although research takes time, each project represents one more step toward a better understanding, improved diagnosis and, I hope, better options for people affected by these diseases,” Ladrie said.

Building a 3D Atlas of PSP Pathology | Andy Choi, University College London

Andy Choi is developing an interactive 3D brain atlas that integrates histology, MRI, post-mortem tissue photographs, genetic data and clinical history into a single anatomical framework. The tool will let researchers visualize where pathology and atrophy occur, how they differ across PSP subtypes and how those patterns relate to symptoms and survival — turning years of siloed data into a shared resource for the field.

“Families often go through a lot of uncertainty before receiving answers,” Choi said. “By mapping these diseases spatially in greater detail, we hope to contribute to a future where this improved understanding will translate into earlier diagnosis and reduced ambiguity.”

Tracing Tau Into the Nucleolus | Kaosara Ganiyu, Maina Lab, BioRTC (Damaturu, Nigeria)

Kaosara Ganiyu's research follows tau beyond its more familiar role in the cytoplasm, into the nucleolus — the structure responsible for building ribosomes. Her lab has found that disease-linked 4R tau mutations overactivate the nucleolus and trigger cell stress; her project will determine which biochemical forms of tau are most responsible, positioning the nucleolus as a potential new therapeutic target for PSP and CBD. Ganiyu is the first Nigerian and first African recipient of a CurePSP Student Fellowship.

“I want them to know that they are not forgotten in the laboratory,” Ganiyu said of families affected by PSP and CBD. “Every experiment we run is motivated by the reality of what these diseases take from patients.”

Engineering Disease-Relevant Tau Fibrils | Victor Shu Cheng Zhao, institution

Current lab methods for producing tau fibrils rely on cofactors like heparin, which don't reliably reproduce the structures actually seen in PSP. Victor Shu Cheng Zhao is testing a heparin-free method — using a strand-loop-strand template and varying salt conditions — to generate fibrils that better match PSP's disease-specific folding pattern, with the goal of building a standardized platform for drug and antibody screening.

“Every study, every discovery and every patient who participates in research brings us closer to the breakthroughs that families deserve,” Zhao said.

Expanding the Genetic Map of CBD | Robina Afzal, Mount Sinai

Working under Drs. John Crary and Kurt Farrell, Afzal is leading a genome-wide association study of 69 neuropathologically-confirmed CBD cases — combined with published data, it will form the largest genetic dataset for pathologically-confirmed CBD to date. The project will test whether CBD shares genetic risk factors with PSP, with summary statistics to be made publicly available for other labs to build on.

“I want research to remain central to my career — not as something separate from patient care, but as an integral part of it,” Afzal said. “I want to be a physician-scientist: someone who can sit with a patient and their family, explain what we know and actively contribute to discovering what we don't.”

Transcriptional and Post-Transcriptional Regulation of Tau by Copia Gag | Joanna Sohn, Brown University

Joanna Sohn is studying Copia, a Drosophila retrotransposon — or "jumping gene" — that becomes more active with age, cellular stress and tau pathology. Working in flies engineered to produce human tau, her lab has found that reducing a Copia-encoded protein called Gag lowers total tau levels, though it's not yet clear whether that effect happens at the RNA stage, the protein stage or is an artifact of the genetic system used to control gene expression. Sohn's project will isolate where in that pathway Copia Gag acts, work that could point to retrotransposon-encoded proteins as a new therapeutic target for PSP, CBD and related tauopathies.

“I would want families affected by PSP/CBD to know that their experiences are the reason this research matters,” Sohn said. “Although my project focuses on basic biological questions, every experiment is part of a larger effort to better understand these diseases and help guide future therapeutic development.”

Click here to learn more about CurePSP's Student Fellowships.