01/05/2024
The Loulou Foundation is pleased to announce the five Awardees of the 2024 CDKL5 Pilot Grant Programme. Now in its ninth year, the CDKL5 Pilot Grant Programme is directed by the Loulou Foundation through its collaboration with the CDKL5 Program of Excellence at the Orphan Disease Center of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.
The goal of the Programme is to advance basic and therapeutic research on CDKL5 Deficiency Disorder, a rare neurodevelopmental disorder affecting thousands of patients across the world. Again this year, the one-year research proposals submitted by these Pilot Grant Awardees cover a range of topics, from the basic biology of CDKL5 to translational and clinical development of therapeutics for CDKL5 Deficiency Disorder.
We thank all applicants to this year’s grant program for providing a high quality and competitive pool of research projects, and thank as well the many scientists who served as peer reviewers for this year’s grant cycle, giving generously of their time and expertise to carefully evaluate all invited applications.
CDKL5 Pilot Grant Programme Awardees 2024:
Roy Ben-Shalom, PhD
University of California, Davis, USA
“Integrating Experimental and Computational Approaches to Unravel the Neurophysiological Basis of CDKL5 Deficiency Disorder”
Ario de Marco, PhD
University of Nova Gorica, SLOVENIA
Maria Luisa Tutino, PhD (Co-PI)
University of Naples/INBB, ITALY
“Looking for differences: in vitro isolation of hCDKL5-specific antibody fragments and set-up of a method to quantify hCDKL5 and possibly distinguish between its isoforms.”
Jacque Pak Kan Ip, PhD
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, CHINA
“Cortical Visual Impairment in CDKL5 Deficiency: Dissecting the Link between Functional Deficits and Molecular Mechanisms”
Keren Lasker, PhD
The Scripps Research Institute, USA
“CDKL5 in Biomolecular Condensates and its Role in CDD Pathophysiology”
W. Andy Tao, PhD
Purdue University, USA
“Profiling CDKL5 signaling landscape at the synapses”
Congratulations again to the 2024 CDKL5 Pilot Grant awardees; we are grateful for the important contributions that they and the other dedicated scientists in the CDKL5 community will make to advancing therapeutic development for CDD. We also look forward to learning more about these and other exciting advances at the CDKL5 Forum in Boston, MA, on Oct 28-29, 2024.
