NEWS

We love our pets. They give us unconditional love, loyalty, companionship, and oftentimes do goofy things that make us laugh. Out of all the things to come out of the pandemic, a positive was that many members of our lab added a furry friend to their family. The closures and ability to work from home gave us more quality time with our pets. In honor of today, we are giving our pandemic pets and pre-pandemic pets an extra snuggle and pat on the head.

Dr. Adrian Beckmann has become the first Frost lab graduate! Congratulations, Adrian. We are so proud of you. It has been a pleasure to have you in the lab. Watch Adrian's commencement speech.

We are currently recruiting patients aged 50-80 years old with a clinical diagnosis of early Alzheimer's disease for our new clinical trial, AntiRetroviral Therapy for Alzheimer's Disease (ART-AD). The study is based on our previous findings that pathological forms of tau activate retrotransposons, or "jumping genes," and that such jumping gene activation is toxic to brain cells. The seven-month trial involves eight visits to the clinic and six months of treatment with 3TC, a

The project was inspired by multiple observations that neurons in human Alzheimer's disease acquire phenotypes that are also present in various cancers: cytoskeletal over-stabilization, nuclear pleomorphisms, decondensation of constitutive heterochromatin, transposable element activation, and aberrant activation of the cell cycle. While cell cycle activation drives tumor formation in the context of cancer, activation of the cell cycle in post-mitotic neurons is sufficient to

Please check out our new preprint! Starting with transcriptomic analyses, we find that age- and tau-induced transposable element activation occurs in the mouse brain. Among transposable elements that are activated at the RNA level in the context of brain aging and tauopathy, we find that the endogenous retrovirus (ERV) class of retrotransposons is particularly enriched. We show that protein encoded by Intracisternal A-particle, a highly active mouse ERV, is elevated in brains

Claira has joined us as a Ph.D. student in the Biology of Aging discipline. Claira, we are excited to have you! Your enthusiasm is infectious.

Dr. Frost was presented with the award at the 2020 30th Anniversary CurePSP celebration. She was selected for the award based on her team's efforts to uncover the effects of pathogenic tau on the nucleus. https://ftdregistry.org/press/curepsp-30th-anniversary-celebration-december-7-2020

Dr. Frost is now appointed as the manager/holder of the Bartell Zachry Memorial Endowment for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases. This generous gift from the Zachry family was made in honor of Henry Bartell Zachry, who passed away in 2020. Bartell Zachry was "known throughout the world as a visionary executive in the engineering and construction industry. " We are thrilled about this generous gift and hope to make the Zachry family proud!

We are thrilled to welcome Jasmine to the Frost lab! Jasmine will be working with Dr. Atrian using iPSC-derived neurons and brain organoids to study tauopathy.

Lulu has joined the Frost lab as a master's student in Cell Systems and Anatomy! Lulu was an undergraduate at Rhodes College, where she earned her bachelor's degree in Chemistry and Drug Discovery. Lulu is smiling under her mask. https://www.uthscsa.edu/academics/biomedical-sciences/programs/cell-systems-anatomy-ms