Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has received a three-year $4.5 million grant from the Carol and Gene Ludwig Family Foundation, aimed at advancing research on neuroimmunology and neurodegeneration with the ultimate goal of developing new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. Administered by WashU Medicine’s Brain Immunology & Glia (BIG) Center, the Carol and Gene Ludwig Initiative in Neuroimmunology Research will support innovative projects led by David M. Holtzman, MD; Jonathan Kipnis, PhD; and Marco Colonna, MD, in addition to other faculty members through a seed grant program.
“This award recognizes exceptionally exciting and innovative work in the area of neuroimmunology at WashU Medicine,” said David H. Perlmutter, MD, the George and Carol Bauer Dean of WashU Medicine, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor. “This support from the Ludwig Foundation will help to accelerate advances in understanding the interplay between the brain and the immune system and harness that knowledge to identify novel targets for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and possibly even prevention of dementia. This work is among the finest examples of the secret sauce of collaboration at WashU that brings together physicians and scientists from different disciplines to achieve more than they could individually.”
Holtzman, the Barbara Burton and Reuben M. Morriss III Distinguished Professor of Neurology, contributed to understanding the role for the immune system in Alzheimer’s disease, in work published in Nature in 2023. The brain’s resident immune cells — microglia — had been previously implicated in causing injury to brain tissue. The Holtzman laboratory found that microglia interact with another immune cell type — T cells — enabling them to both enter the brain and contribute to neurodegeneration in a mouse model. Their work demonstrated that removing T cells from the brain prevents brain damage and cognitive impairment.
The Carol and Gene Ludwig Initiative in Neuroimmunology Research will support an in-depth study of the processes responsible for activating and recruiting a subset of harmful T cells to the brain to cause disease.
“We know the imbalanced immune response could be involved in causing neurodegenerative disease,” Holtzman said. “A complete picture of the immune players and their interactions will help us identify and test therapeutic targets to interfere with the progression of neurodegeneration.”