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John Hardy is the UK 's first Breakthrough Prize laureate

2015; Wiley; Volume: 282; Issue: 24 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/febs.13602

1742-4658

Séamus J. Martin,

Prion Diseases and Protein Misfolding

John Hardy, Professor of Neuroscience at University College London and Editorial Board member of The FEBS Journal, has been awarded The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences in recognition of his work identifying mutations that cause amyloid build-up in the brain – research that has transformed the study of Alzheimer's disease and other major neurodegenerative diseases. Professor Hardy, from University College London's Institute of Neurology, was awarded the Breakthrough Prize in recognition of his pioneering research over the past 20 years into the genetic causes of Alzheimer's disease and other major neurodegenerative diseases. His discovery that Alzheimer's disease could be inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion was a seminal event in our understanding of this neurodegenerative disease. Professor Hardy and his colleagues discovered a heritable mutation in the gene coding for amyloid precursor protein, from which amyloid-β peptide is excised [1]. The abnormal plaques and tangles found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients are largely composed of amyloid-β peptide, and families carrying mutations in amyloid precursor protein (among other genes) have an increased risk of developing this devastating disease. This discovery led to the formulation of the very influential ‘amyloid cascade hypothesis’, which proposed that the deposition of the amyloid-β peptide in the brain initiates a sequence of events that ultimately lead to the dementia characteristic of Alzheimer's disease [2, 3]. Founded in 2013 by Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki, Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, Yuri and Julia Milner, Jack Ma and Cathy Zhang, the Breakthrough Prizes honour major advances in fundamental physics, mathematics and life sciences [4]. Each year, one of up to six Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences (each endowed with US$3 million) is awarded for transformative advances toward understanding living systems and extending human life. Recipients of the Breakthrough Prizes are chosen by a committee of previous awardees, and all prizes recognize a single person's contribution to their field, with special attention to recent developments. Professor Hardy has announced that he will be generously donating £50,000 of his prize money towards the construction of the new Dementia Research Institute at University College London, which aims to bring together researchers from across University College London and University College London Hospitals [5]. It is hoped that such consolidation of research efforts will ultimately lead to the development of effective treatments for dementia sufferers. Professor Hardy said: “It is a great honour to be awarded the prize for our work dissecting the causes of Alzheimer and Parkinson's diseases. It is, of course, our hope and aim that this understanding leads to effective treatments. At UCL with the Alzheimer's Research UK Drug Discovery Institute, the Leonard Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre and the fantastic clinical team we have at the Institute of Neurology, I feel we can beat these diseases.” Professor Hardy, who has been a member of the Editorial Board of The FEBS Journal since 2010, was presented with his 2016 Breakthrough Prize award on Sunday 8th November, at a televised Oscar-style ceremony at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California [6]. Although it is often hard to choose specific scientific breakthroughs that change the way we think about a problem or a disease, there is no doubt that John Hardy's discoveries have been truly transformative in our understanding of the underlying causes of the neurodegeneration seen in Alzheimer's disease. Of course, we are also delighted to have such a distinguished scientist as a very active member of the Editorial Board of The FEBS Journal.