Ethan Hughes, PhD, associate professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, has received a competitive 2025 McKnight Neurobiology of Brain Disorders (NBD) Award for a research project focused on the role myelin dysfunction plays in Alzheimer’s disease.
Collaborating with Brad Zuchero, PhD, assistant professor of neurology at Stanford University, their research focuses on how myelin, a protective insulation layer that forms around nerves, is affected in Alzheimer’s disease. Specifically, they are studying how myelin in the brain forms and functions to develop potential treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
“This project combines the outstanding expertise of the Zuchero Lab in mechanistic cell biology and tool development with our lab, which specializes in cellular dynamics and behavioral assessments in animal models,” Hughes says.
Diving deep into myelin
Myelin is a series of cellular membranes that form around nerve fibers to help different parts of the nervous system communicate with each other.
“You can think of myelin as the insulation around an electrical wire. Myelin speeds the transmission of electrical signals down the length of the nerve fiber, allowing rapid communication between different neurons,” Hughes says.
Myelin dysfunction has already been associated with some neurodegenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, but the cellular mechanisms driving that dysfunction and loss in Alzheimer’s disease remains largely unknown.
“Recently there has been a major shift in the conceptual view of the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease from solely focusing on neurons to a consideration of other cell types.” Hughes says. “Now, growing evidence suggests myelin is lost early on and may play an influential role in Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis.”
Ultimately, the McKnight NBD Award-funded project could reveal myelin as a potential therapeutic target to treat Alzheimer’s disease, which currently has no cure.
“This is a powerful collaboration, and an exciting new hypothesis that we’ll be testing,” Hughes says. “This generous support from the McKnight Foundation will help us fulfill our mission of making fundamental discoveries that will ultimately improve the lives of patients.”
Supporting vital discoveries
The McKnight NBD Award grants the researchers $300,000 over three years for the project, which was selected through a competitive process. 182 letters of intent were submitted for the award. Of those, 18 full applications were selected, eight finalists were interviewed, and four awardees were ultimately chosen.
The McKnight NBD Awards support innovative research by U.S. scientists who study neurological and psychiatric diseases. The awards encourage collaboration between basic and clinical neuroscience to translate laboratory discoveries about the brain and nervous system into diagnoses and therapies to improve human health.
In addition to the funding award, Hughes and Zuchero have been invited to attend the McKnight Conference on Neuroscience meeting in Aspen, where a community of the nation’s best neuroscientists gather to learn, interact, and collaborate on new ideas.
