Thanks to everyone who could be part of this years’ meeting, it was terrific to see everyone in person, and the meeting was a great success all round!

We would all like to extend a big congratulations to Professor Glenda Halliday's most recent accolade, being named NSW Scientist of the year, 2022. A fantastic recognition and well deserved!!

John Mattick and Paulo Amaral have just recently published an open access book - RNA, the Epicenter of Genetic Information: A new understanding of molecular biology

Dr Benjamin Trist was invited to give the keynote presentation at MND New South Wales’ 2022 Day of Hope and Remembrance, where he showcased his recent work describing the role of superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) protein in motor neuron degeneration in genetic and non-inherited forms of ALS.

Congratulations to Amr Abdeen from the Double Lab at the BMC for his recently first authored paper published in npj Parkinson’s disease on evidence supporting the role for iron and copper dysregulation in Parkinson’s disease.

Congratulations to Jessica Chedid, a PhD student of Nicolas Dzamko’s lab, who has recently published a first-author paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, on how a small molecule Toll-like receptor (TLR2) antagonist rescues α-synuclein fibril pathology.

Congratulations to Ben Trist for his first author paper recently accepted in Acta Neuropath Comms on Co-deposition of SOD1, TDP-43 and p62 proteinopathies in ALS. This work was in collaboration with Centre for MND Research, Macquarie University and King's College London.

This was a validation study that examined two short tandem repeats at the NEK1 and STMN2 loci that were recently associated with ALS risk and proposed to be predictive of clinical features.

Congratulations to Natalie Grima, from the Macquarie University Centre for MND Research group, for her first author technical study isolating RNA and DNA from postmortem tissues for omics studies in neurodegenerative diseases.

Congratulations to Dr Andrew Montgomery for recently being awarded the Drug Discovery Institute’s Early Career Award.

A recent review has been published from the Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery group at the University of Sydney, looking at the potential use of Purinergic P2X7 Receptor as a therapeutic target in ALS

Congratulations to Ben Trist for his first author paper recently accepted in Brain. This was a collaborative work over 4 years with ForeFront researchers across our group, looking at SOD1 and it's role in ALS.

Laura Hughes, a PhD student in Nicolas Dzamko’s lab group, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Florida has recently had a co-first author paper accepted in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience.

Congratulations to Laura Hughes and Dr. Diba Ahmadi Rastegar from Nicolas Dzamko’s lab group who have recently published a joint first author paper in npj Parkinson's disease.

Congratulations to Jasmin Galper, a recent PhD graduate from Nic Dzamko's lab, for her first author paper looking at lipid changes in LRRK2/Parkinson's disease accepted for publication in Brain.

Congratulations to Fiona Weiss, a PhD student with Nic Dzamko, for her first author review looking at the immune changes in Parkinson's disease brain tissue, accepted for publication in Neurobiology of disease.

Congratulations to Candy Cheung, from the Frontier lab, for being awarded a Dementia Australia project grant to look at positive behaviour support education program for family carers of people with dementia.

Congratulations to Dr Nikki-Anne Wilson who recently completed her PhD with the Frontier group and has been awarded The Rita and John Cornforth Graduate Medal for Research Excellence by the University of Sydney.

This paper, authored by Elie Matar et al, highlights the novel potential diagnostic and therapeutic benefits of dynamic imaging as a biomarker for cognitive fluctuations in lewy body dementia

Congratulations to Gabriel Wainstein, a post graduate student with Mac Shine, on his first-author review published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, suggesting a novel analogy for thinking about the influence of the locus coeruleus

This review was a joint collaboration of key investigators from our ForeFront group and critically evaluates and explores potential biomarkers that can distinguish FTD and ALS that could ultimately improve patient diagnosis and treatment

New international grant awarded to study the role Oligodendrocytes in Alpha-synuclein in Multiple System Atrophy

New international grant awarded to study common and uncommon lipid dysregulation pathways in patients with MSA and PD.

Congratulations to Julia Forkgen for being awarded the 2021 University Medal.

Congratulations to Katherine Phan on her first author on the human endogenous retrovirus K (HERV-K) in FTD, published in Communications Medicine in Dec 2021 and an editorial Research Highlight published in Nature Reviews Neurology.

Professor Muireann Irish - awarded the 2021 International Science Council (ISC) 2021 Early Career Scientist Award – Australia and Oceania.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) announces the 2021 Robert A. Pritzker Prize for Leadership in Parkinson’s Research award to Professor Glenda Halliday.

Fatima Afaar - winner of the inaugural Faculty of Medicine and Health Research Art Express Awards, of Written category, for her artwork titled “Uncertainties”

Carol Dobson-Stone and her team have recently identified a new disease gene that can cause frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This work was published in Brain, 143:783-799, 2020

Congratulations to Mr Sam Lane who has been awarded a NSW Health PhD Partnerships Program stipend and funding from the Margaret Ethel Jew Fund for this PhD work

Congratulations to Siobhán Shaw, a PhD student with the MiND group for her paper "Uncovering the prevalence and neural substrates of anhedonia in frontotemporal dementia." published in Brain, 144(5): 1551-1564

Professor Glenda Halliday has been elected by the Australian Academy of Science as one of 22 of Australia’s most distinguished scientists in 2021.

Congratulations to Andrew Hannaford for his first author paper - Diagnostic Utility of Gold Coast Criteria in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis published in Annals of Neurology, 2021;89(5):979-986

Congratulations to Laura Hughes first author paper in Journal of Parkinson's disease showing the use of GCase enzyme activity as a biomarker for PD which may assist in earlier diagnosis, disease stratification, and the evaluation of new therapeutics

A recent article looking at FTD and anhedonia has received a lot of recent media attention due to it’s importance in early detection of FTD.

Congratulations to Jasmin Galper, a PhD candidate in Nic Dzamko's lab for their first author paper on "Cytokines and Gaucher Biomarkers in Glucocerebrosidase Carriers with and Without Parkinson Disease". Mov Disord. 2021 Jun;36(6):1451-1455

Congratulations to Zac Chatterton for his recently accepted paper "Cerebrospinal fluid liquid biopsy for detecting somatic mosaicism" in Brain Communications,Volume 3, Issue 1, 2021

Professor Double's plenary lecture for the Society's virtual AGM on the 9th of December: Prof Kay Double - 2020 Nina Kondelos Plenary Lecture

The international chemistry news site ‘Chemistry World’ recently interviewed Michael Kassiou on new research strategies he is utilising to advance drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases, including using a phenotypic approach to screen drug candidates.

Congratulations to Professor Michael Kassiou who was awarded the 2020 Applied Research Award for his contribution towards innovation through applied researchfrom his academic laboratories to pre-clinical and clinical settings

“Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) remains a fatal condition for which there are no highly effective treatment options, but newer and more sensitive research approaches are making huge gains in uncovering the mechanisms underlying this disease.

Congratulations to Glenda Halliday who was awarded the NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Investigator Grant Award for Leadership in Clinical Medicine and Science.

“Autophagy activation promotes clearance of α-synuclein inclusions in fibril-seeded human neural cells” has been selected as the representative ‘Neurobiology’ article for our 2019 retrospective collection called “The year in JBC: 2019.”

This award recognizes the world's most influential researchers of the past decade, demonstrated by the production of multiple highly-cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science.