Third Annual “Solving Neurodegeneration” Catalyst Meeting — Neuroscience Experts Assemble in Boston to Seek Innovative Cures

Newswise — August 27, 2024, Boston, Mass. — On August 23 and 24, Glaucoma Research Foundation (GRF) sponsored a two-day catalyst meeting at the InterContinental Boston titled “Solving Neurodegeneration 3.” The meeting brought together top scientific experts in the field of neurodegeneration and glaucoma to share ideas and learn from each other with the goal of generating new ideas and research collaborations. The catalyst meeting was sponsored in partnership with Richard and Carolyn Sloane.

Glaucoma Research Foundation currently has two collaborative “Catalyst for a Cure” research initiatives underway. The eight principal investigators, four from each research team, participated in the Boston meeting.

The Catalyst for a Cure Vision Restoration Initiative (CFC3) researchers are Xin Duan, PhD, Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco, Yang Hu, MD, PhD, Stanford University School of Medicine, Anna La Torre, PhD, University of California, Davis, and Derek Welsbie, MD, PhD, Shiley Eye Institute, University of California, San Diego.

The Melza M. and Frank Theodore Barr Foundation Catalyst for a Cure Initiative to Prevent and Cure Neurodegeneration (CFC4) researchers are Sandro Da Mesquita, PhD, Mayo Clinic, Milica Margeta, MD, PhD, Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical School, Karthik Shekhar, PhD, University of California, Berkeley, and Humsa Venkatesh, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

Additional meeting participants included CFC3 Scientific Advisory Board members Larry Benowitz, PhD, Harvard University, Valeria Canto-Soler, PhD, University of Colorado, Jeffrey Goldberg, MD, PhD, Byers Eye Institute, Stanford University, and Zhigang He, PhD, Harvard University, and CFC4 Scientific Advisory Board members Guojun Bu, PhD, International Society for Molecular Neurodegeneration, Adriana Di Polo, PhD, University of Montreal, Shane Liddelow, PhD, New York University, Sally Temple, PhD, Neural Stem Cell Institute, and Monica Vetter, PhD, University of Utah. Drs. Sally Temple and Zhigang He both delivered keynote lectures at the meeting.

“Our goal for the catalyst meeting was to spark new ideas and approaches to solving neurodegeneration, encourage new collaborations, and produce a meeting record capturing these insights for publication,” said Thomas M. Brunner, President and CEO of Glaucoma Research Foundation. “We are grateful to Carolyn and Richard Sloane for suggesting we bring together the scientists involved in our two Catalyst for a Cure research initiatives for this annual catalyst meeting, and for co-sponsoring the meeting,” he added.

Two invited keynote speakers presented lectures to stimulate further discussion — Daniel Saban, PhD from Duke University (Professor of Ophthalmology, Associate Professor in Integrative Immunobiology, and Faculty Network Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences), and Valerie Wallace, PhD from Krembil Research Institute/University Health Network (Co-Director of the Donald K. Johnson Eye Institute and Chair of the Vision Science Research Program).

Each of the participants presented their new, unpublished research results to the rest of the group, followed by group discussions in which new ideas were encouraged.

Sally Temple, PhD, CFC4 scientific advisor, said: “This was an amazing meeting, and I learned something from everyone here. Each of the labs is doing top notch scientific work; they are coming together, creating more than the sum of their parts. We are seeing some exciting therapeutic candidates moving ahead, addressing commonalities across diseases.”

Invited speaker Daniel Saban, PhD commented: “I’ve been involved in other consortiums and think tanks, and I haven’t seen anything like this in my career.”

Jeffrey Goldberg, MD, PhD, chair of the CFC3 scientific advisory board, remarked: “In summary, the progress is really exciting. The quality of science is uniformly top notch, and there are clear examples of collaboration.”

The meeting was chaired by John Flanagan, PhD, DSc, FCOptom, from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Flanagan, a member of Glaucoma Research Foundation’s Board of Directors, also serves as chair of GRF’s Research Committee.

“Catalyst for a Cure, which is GRF’s flagship research program, takes a bold, collaborative approach to discovery by breaking down traditional research silos and bringing great minds together,” Dr. Flanagan said. “Both of the current Catalyst for a Cure teams have the same overall goal of preventing vision loss from glaucoma. The Vision Restoration Initiative is concerned with restoring vision cells lost through neurodegeneration, while the Neurodegeneration Initiative is looking at how neuronal death can be prevented, stopped, or reversed. This annual Catalyst Meeting is one more way that we actively encourage collaboration between the two teams and their advisors,” Flanagan said.

Glaucoma Research Foundation (GRF) is a national non-profit organization dedicated to finding a cure for glaucoma. GRF funds glaucoma research worldwide and serves as the leading information source for patients and their families. Founded in 1978 in San Francisco, GRF was created to encourage innovative research to find better ways to care for people with glaucoma — the leading cause of preventable blindness. Since its inception, GRF has invested more than $90 million to fund breakthrough research to better understand, detect, and treat glaucoma.