Salk scientist wins 2007 McKnight Neuroscience of Brain Disorders Award

November 30, 2006

Salk scientist wins 2007 McKnight Neuroscience of Brain Disorders Award

November 30, 2006

La Jolla, CA —Dr. Andrew Dillin, an assistant professor in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has been selected for the 2007 McKnight Neuroscience of Brain Disorders Award. He will receive $300,000 over a three-year period to study “age-associated neuroprotection by insulin/IGF-1 signaling.”

Established in 1986 by the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience, the Neuroscience of Brain Disorders Awards support innovative efforts aimed at translating basic laboratory discoveries in neuroscience into clinical benefits for patients. The awards are highly competitive: Only six out of 196 applicants were selected this year.

Like most neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer’s disease usually appears late in life. Dillin’s hypothesis is that the aging body continually produces proteins prone to aggregation, eventually leading to diseases such as Alzheimer’s. To understand the consequences of age-onset protein aggregation and disease, Dillin has taken a multi-pronged approach and established key collaborations with Salk researchers Roland Riek, Steve Heinemann, and post-doctoral fellow Ehud Cohen and is continuing his strong collaboration with Scripps scientist Jeffery W. Kelly.

He and his collaborators will examine how the worm Caenorhabditis elegans protects itself against toxic protein aggregation with age and will seek to evaluate whether the same protective mechanisms exist in mammals.

Dillin will also determine whether the same genetic pathways that regulate aging function to regulate protection against proteotoxicity. Ultimately, he will seek to identify the agent or agents implicated in age-related neurodegeneration. If successful, the work will generate preliminary data for an ongoing collaboration to probe the link between aging and the progressive degeneration of brain cells.

Born and raised in Reno, Nevada, Dillin earned his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Nevada in Reno and his doctorate in molecular and cellular biology from the University of California at Berkeley. After completing a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of California in San Francisco, he was recruited to the Salk Institute in La Jolla. A faculty member since 2002, Dillin uses the tiny roundworm 秀丽隐杆线虫 to study the process of aging and age-related diseases.

ABOUT THE McKNIGHT ENDOWMENT FUND FOR NEUROSCIENCE

The McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience is an independent organization funded solely by The McKnight Foundation of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is led by a board of prominent neuroscientists from around the country. The McKnight Foundation has supported neuroscience research since 1977. The foundation established the Endowment Fund in 1986 to carry out one of the intentions of founder William L. McKnight (1887–1978). One of the early leaders of the 3M Company, he had a personal interest in memory and its diseases and wanted part of his legacy used to help find cures.

The Endowment Fund makes three types of awards each year. In addition to the Neuroscience of Brain Disorders Awards, there are the McKnight Scholar Awards that support neuroscientists in the early stages of their research careers; and the McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Awards that provide seed money to develop technical inventions to advance brain research. Currently, two Salk researchers, Dr. Richard J. Krauzlis 和 Dr. Edward M. Callaway receive funding from the McKnight Technological Innovations in Neurosciences Award.

索尔克生物研究所（Salk Institute for Biological Studies）是一家位于加利福尼亚州拉霍亚的独立非营利组织，致力于基础生命科学领域的研究、改善人类健康以及培养未来的研究者。其创始人乔纳斯·索尔克医学博士（Jonas Salk, M.D.）于1955年研发的脊髓灰质炎疫苗几乎根除了这种致残性疾病。1965年，在圣地亚哥市政府赠予土地和“March of Dimes”组织的财政支持下，研究所正式落成。.