The Tau Biology Project

The Tau Biology Project

Webinar Summary

Dr. Kosik will discuss the Tau Biology Project recently undertaken through Cohen Veterans Bioscience. Tau plays a crucial role in many neurodegenerative conditions, including the late sequelae of repeated head injury known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Recently, a surge of insights concerning several proteins, including Tau, have revealed mechanisms by which they become detached from the surrounding milieu and become vulnerable to the formation of pathological inclusions.  These inclusions take the form of rope-like fibers that eventually strangle neurons.

About Kenneth S. Kosik, MA, MD
Harriman Professor and Co-Director of the Neuroscience Research Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Kenneth S. Kosik, MA, MD, served as professor at the Harvard Medical School from 1996 until 2004 when he became the Harriman Professor and Co-Director of the Neuroscience Research Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He co-directs the Tau Consortium and co-founded the Learning & the Brain® conference series.

He has received a number of awards, including the Whitaker Health Sciences Award from MIT, a Milton Foundation Award from the Harvard Medical School, the Moore Award from American Association of Neuropathologists, the Metropolitan Life Award, the Derek Denny-Brown Award from the American Neurological Association, the Zenith and Temple Awards from the Alzheimer’s Association, the Ranwell Caputo Medal from the Argentine Society of Neurochemistry, the NASA Group Achievement Award to Neurolab Team, the Premio Aventis from the Academia Nacional de Medicina, Colombia, and the Santa Barbara Innovation Star Award.

He co-authored The Alzheimer’s Solution: How Today’s Care is Failing Millions and How We Can Do Better and Outsmarting Alzheimer’s Disease. His work, including the characterization in Colombia of the largest family in the world with familial Alzheimer’s disease, has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New Yorker, on the BBC, CNN, PBS, and the CBS show 60 Minutes. His 2016 UCSB commencement address was archived on the Graduation Wisdom Best Commencement Speeches website.