Dr. Alessandro Ori and Dr. Julia C. Heiby from the Leibniz Institute for Research on Aging - Fritz Lipmann Institute in Jena, Germany received the 13th NCL Research Award.

Since 2008, we have regularly awarded the NCL Research Prize. At 50,000 euros, is the most highly endowed award in the field of NCL childhood dementia. With this award, our Scientific Advisory Board honors an innovative research idea that contributes to a better understanding of the role of CLN3, the disease, and facilitates the development of therapies.

The award-winning project of Alessandro and Julia is entitled: "Targeting alterations of the lysosomal proteome in Batten disease".

The aim of this research is to reproduce lysosomal omics changes in a suitable in vitro cell model, including particularly proteomics changes observed in CLN3 lysosomes in vivo, to enable testing therapeutic approaches for their capacity to normalize these changes.

The prize money supports the postdoctoral work of Julia in Alessandro's research group in Jena.

We warmly congratulate our two award winners and wish them lots of success in their work!

A big thank goes to the Joachim Herz Foundation, which once again sponsored our NCL Research Award.