Luke Davis awarded Wellcome Accelerator Award

Tauopathies, such as Alzheimer's and Pick's disease are a large class of dementias that are tightly linked to the dysfunction of tau protein. The dysfunction of tau includes the formation and runaway growth of multi-protein clumps that result in severe damage to neurons. There is still no effective treatment for tauopathies caused by excessive clumping of tau, largely due to a lack of basic understanding of the molecular interactions and conditions in the neuron that dysregulate tau.

The project will leverage Luke's expertise in statistical physics, theoretical biophysics, and numerical simulations to build a theoretical modelling framework to understand how all the salient molecular interactions and reactions between tau and other molecules affects how tau clumps together. Importantly, the team will work closely with experts in experimental cell biology and chemical physics to highlight physical mechanisms that will help target effective therapeutics.