We are equally rewarded by the recent news on the award of our joint FRSQ-Pfizer Innovation grant application with Dr Cuello, Dr Do Carmo, Dr Kriz and Dr Rosa-Neto. This Quebec team aims at generating new transgenic animal models to investigate early AD-related synaptic plasticity deficits and pro-inflammatory responses with novel, in vivo imaging and bioluminescence.

Congratulations to Florencia Iulita, PhD student, who won a Travel Award to attend the 20^th Meeting from the American Society of Neural Therapy and Repair in Clearwater, Florida.

Florencia presented her results on NGF Metabolism in Down’s syndrome most successfully, in a Platform Presentation Session on Alzheimer's disease and Down’s syndrome.

We regretted the sad news of Dr Rita Levi Montalcini’s death on December 30^th 2012. Best known for her discovery of Nerve Growth Factor (which led her to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1986), Dr Montalcini was a role model for her scientific career and her perseverance to achieve her goals. A link to her obituary written by Dr Cuello can be found here.

Post-doctoral Fellow Dr Simon Allard and Dr Cuello appeared on a special issue on Alzheimer’s disease (“Percée dans le domaine de la maladie d'Alzheimer”) by Le Code Chastenay (TeleQuebec). They were interviewed for their important discovery on pharmacological manipulations of the NGF Pathway and their impact on the CNS cholinergic phenotype. The 20 min interview aired on January 8^th 2013. To access the video click here.

Congratulations to Post-doctoral Fellow Dr Cecilia Hanzel for winning a 2013 Fellowship from the McGill Neuroinflammation Training Program. Cecilia’s research focuses on investigating early signs of AD-related CNS inflammation in our McGill transgenic rat model of AD. She is also interested in neuron-glia communication.