​​​​​Doha – Prof. Hilal A. Lashuel, professor of neuroscience in neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) – a Qatar Foundation partner university - has been awarded a $9 million three-year research grant from Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) in partnership with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF).

Prof. Lashuel serves as the lead and coordinating principal investigator of the award, leading an international team that includes three co-investigators from Stanford University: Prof. Marius Wernig, Prof. Monther Abu-Remaileh, and Prof. Michael C. Bassik. The team will collaborate with Arvinas, Inc., a US biotech firm, to investigate approaches aimed at selectively targeting toxic protein aggregates associated with Parkinson’s disease. The team will join ASAP’s Collaborative Research Network (CRN), a global community of multidisciplinary and multi-institutional teams collaborating to accelerate discoveries in Parkinson’s disease research.

The grant highlights the progression of WCM-Q and Qatar Foundation’s research efforts in the biomedical sciences toward initiatives that support translational biomedical research with international collaboration. ASAP is a global, collaborative research program dedicated to accelerating discovery in Parkinson’s disease. Managed by the Coalition for Aligning Science and implemented through The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) for Parkinson's Research, it is led by Nobel laureate Dr. Randy Schekman, professor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley, and Managing Director Sonya Dumanis, Ph.D.

Prof. Lashuel, who is also research development and innovation advisor to the chairperson of Qatar Foundation, executive director of RDI within the Qatar Foundation Chairperson’s Office, and professor emeritus at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute (EPFL), is one of the world’s foremost authorities on protein misfolding and neurodegeneration.

“I am deeply honored to receive this award, and even more proud of the decades of science behind it and the extraordinary team that made it possible,” said Prof. Lashuel. “ASAP is unique in the way it combines long-horizon funding with access to a global network of leaders in Parkinson’s research and to technologies that no single laboratory could assemble alone. For our team, this is an exceptional opportunity to push the frontiers of what we understand about disease mechanisms and to generate insights that may inform future therapeutic approaches.”

Parkinson’s disease is the fastest-growing neurological disorder in the world, affecting more than ten million people globally, a number expected to double by 2040. Despite decades of intensive research, no treatment exists that slows, stops, or reverses the disease. Every therapy available today manages symptoms. None addresses the underlying biology of the disease.

 At the heart of Parkinson’s disease is the abnormal clumping of a protein called alpha-synuclein inside brain cells. When this protein misfolds and accumulates, it forms toxic deposits known as Lewy bodies, which are associated with the loss of the dopamine-producing neurons that control movement, mood, sleep, and cognition. As these neurons die, the hallmark symptoms of the disease, tremor, rigidity, slowed movement, memory difficulties, sleep disturbance, and depression, emerge and worsen over time.

Healthy brain cells are equipped with sophisticated internal systems to detect, break down, and remove damaged or clumped proteins before they accumulate to dangerous levels. Chief among these are lysosomes, specialised structures inside cells that function as the brain’s recycling centres, digesting and neutralising toxic material. In Parkinson’s disease, these systems become dysregulated, allowing toxic alpha-synuclein aggregates to persist, build up, and spread to other brain regions.

The central questions this research sets out to answer are among of the most important unsolved problems in Parkinson’s biology: how do these toxic protein aggregates form, how do they spread in the brain, how do they kill neurons and how does the brain clear them. The goal is to use this knowledge to better understand mechanisms involved in protein aggregation and clearance, with the aim of informing future therapeutic strategies. This could open new paths to treat or slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease.

This project builds on a foundation of landmark discoveries made by Prof. Lashuel and his collaborators over more than two decades of work at the leading edge of Parkinson’s disease research. His laboratory has pioneered the development of tool sets, new methods, and neuronal models that enable researchers to better study the complexity of pathology in the brains of Parkinson’s disease patients. This is essential for identifying therapeutic targets relevant to human disease and developing research tools and therapeutic hypotheses.

The new ASAP project takes this platform to its next level of complexity by assembling precisely the team the science demands. Prof. Marius Wernig of Stanford University brings world-leading expertise in cellular reprogramming, while Prof. Monther Abu-Remaileh, also of Stanford, is one of the field’s foremost specialists in lysosomal biology and metabolic regulation. Prof. Michael C. Bassik, another Stanford-based expert, is a pioneer in functional genomics and CRISPR-based screening. The team is further strengthened by its collaboration with Dr. Angela Cacace, chief scientific officer at Arvinas and a leader in the field of targeted protein degradation. Arvinas brings world-class expertise in PROTAC discovery and development, and a translational engine that can be leveraged in the project to convert the team's mechanistic insights into potential therapies for Parkinson’s disease that selectively target and remove toxic protein aggregates.

The research takes a new approach—most efforts to develop Parkinson’s disease therapies have focused on either protecting neurons from death or attempting to block alpha-synuclein from aggregating in the first place. This project instead targets the downstream failure to clear aggregates once formed, and does so in a model that captures the full complexity of how neurons and their cellular environment interact in the human brain.

If successful, the research may provide insights into biological pathways involved in protein clearance and neurodegeneration that could help inform future therapeutic research.  Given that most patients receive their diagnosis years or even decades after pathology has already begun, such an approach would have profound clinical relevance.

The findings are also expected to shed light on related neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia, and multiple system atrophy, which share common protein clearance failures and together represent one of medicine’s greatest unmet challenges.

WCM-Q’s Prof. Khaled Machaca, vice dean for research, innovation, and commercialization, said: “This award, which is impressive in both scale and goals, promises great discoveries that are likely to impact Parkinson’s disease treatment. It is extremely gratifying to have the grant awarded to a WCM-Q principal investigator, which highlights the natural progression of the research program at WCM-Q and, more broadly, demonstrates how Qatar Foundation-led research efforts in the biomedical sciences have made an important move into projects with translational impact. This contributes to Qatar’s growing international presence as a location for very high-quality, impactful biomedical research. We offer our heartfelt congratulations to the Lashuel Lab for this wonderful achievement.” 

Prof. Javaid Sheikh, dean of WCM-Q, said: “It is hugely pleasing for WCM-Q to be awarded a grant for a project of such significance and promise. We give thanks to everyone at Qatar Foundation, ASAP, MJFF, Arvinis, Stanford, and to those in our own WCM-Q Research Division, particularly in Prof. Lashuel’s Lab, for their important work to establish this excellent initiative, which holds great potential to address a truly debilitating disease.”

The award follows a $1.6 million research grant from MJFF, announced in January 2026, to support a research collaboration between the Lashuel Lab at WCM-Q and Nautilus Biotechnology, a company pioneering single-molecule proteome analysis, to study the connection between the alpha-synuclein protein and Parkinson’s disease.

Many Weill Cornell Medicine physicians and scientists maintain relationships and collaborate with external organizations to foster scientific innovation and provide expert guidance. The institution makes these disclosures public to ensure transparency. For this information, see profile for Dr. Hilal Lashuel: https://vivo.weill.cornell.edu/display/cwid-hil4001

Additional Information

About the Research Team

Prof. Hilal A. Lashuel (Lead and Coordinating PI) is the Research Development and Innovation Advisor to the Chairperson of Qatar Foundation, Professor of Neuroscience in Neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, and Professor Emeritus at EPFL (Switzerland). He is one of the world's foremost authorities on protein misfolding and neurodegeneration.

Prof. Marius Wernig (Co-Investigator, Stanford University) is a leading expert in cellular reprogramming and the generation of human neurons from stem cells — a core technical capability of this project.

Prof. Monther Abu-Remaileh (Co-Investigator, Stanford University) is a specialist in lysosomal biology and metabolic regulation — bringing precisely the expertise in cellular clearance mechanisms that lies at the heart of this research.

Prof. Michael C. Bassik (Co-Investigator, Stanford University) is a leader in functional genomics and CRISPR-based screening — providing tools to systematically identify which genes and pathways regulate alpha-synuclein clearance across cell types.

About Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar 

Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar is a partnership between Cornell University and Qatar Foundation. It offers a comprehensive Six-Year Medical Program leading to the Cornell University M.D. degree with teaching by Cornell and Weill Cornell faculty and by physicians at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), Sidra Medicine, the Primary Health Care Corporation, and Aspetar Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Hospital, who hold Weill Cornell appointments. Through its biomedical research program, WCM-Q is building a sustainable research community in Qatar while advancing basic science and clinical research. Through its medical college, WCM-Q seeks to provide the finest education possible for medical students, to improve health care both now and for future generations, and to provide high quality health care to the Qatari population.

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