Ghazaleh Ashrafi, an assistant professor of cell biology and physiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been awarded a four-year $1.2 million Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award as part of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Neurodegeneration Challenge Network. The award will support her research on understanding how imbalances in the brain’s metabolism may contribute to neurodegenerative diseases.
The brain uses glucose as its primary energy source to function properly, but during a glucose shortage, the brain can use alternative fuel sources. Nerve cells and the support cells of the brain, called astrocytes, communicate with each other about the brain’s metabolic needs when glucose is scarce.
Read more on the School of Medicine website.
