The Lefler Center’s commitment to progress in neurodegenerative disease therapy motivates our funding of the next generation of trainees. The Lefler Fellowship provides research grants to pre- and post-doctoral investigators performing fundamental research with a disease focus. Lefler Fellows have gone on to start their own laboratories, building on their fellowship research and advancing the field.

Jonathan Green
Harvey Lab, Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurobiology
Scalable methods for studying the roles of neuronal types in spatial navigation

Xiaomeng Han
Lichtman Lab, Harvard University
Development of a novel approach to localize neurodegeneration-related molecules in high-resolution electron microscopy volumes

Hankum Park
Harper Lab, Harvard Medical School, Department of Cell Biology
Quantitative Analysis of Amyloid Processing and Trafficking in Alzheimer’s Disease

Alexandra Vacarro (read profile)
Rogulja Lab, Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurobiology
Understanding mechanisms of sleep deprivation-induced morbidity and mortality

Allison Hamilos
Assad Lab, Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurobiology
Determining the role of nigrostriatal interactions on movement initiation

Brikha Shrestha
Goodrich Lab, Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurobiology
Activity-dependent diversification of neurons in the cochlea

Chundi Xu
Pecot Lab, Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurobiology
Control of synaptic specificity through differential expression of homologous cell surface proteins

Previous Lefler Fellows >

The Lefler Small Grants program promotes creativity and innovation by providing resources that allow investigators to test new concepts without delay, avoiding the cumbersome process of attaining traditional government support in the initial stages of a new project. Lefler funds offer a streamlined way to get started. Such funds can allow researchers to test a new gene delivery method to see if it holds promise for that lab’s work, or to experiment with a brand new imaging platform for an alternative way to visualize the brain activity in a disease state they are studying.

S. Robert Datta
Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurobiology
Mechanistic experiments to reveal how the basal ganglia enables effective action selection and support the generation of adaptive behaviors

Michael Greenberg
Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurobiology
Neuronal activity-dependent DNA repair in healthy aging

Wade Regehr
Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurobiology
Direct Purkinje cell inhibition of the parabrachial nucleus regulates non-motor behavior

 

Clifford J. Woolf
Boston Children’s Hospital, F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center
Developing a Human Motor Neuron Model of TDP-43 Related ALS for Genome-wide CRISPR screens.