Professor of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry, Director of the Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research

Overview

Dr. Bess Frost earned her B.S. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Texas, Austin, where she investigated the effects of chronic alcohol exposure on the brain. She went on to earn her Ph.D. from the University of California San Francisco, where she worked with Dr. Marc Diamond. As a graduate student, Bess discovered that pathogenic forms of tau, a protein that drives neurotoxicity in Alzheimer's disease and related "tauopathies," can spread between cells in a manner akin to prion proteins. Bess worked with Dr. Mel Feany at Harvard Medical School for her postdoctoral training, where she discovered that toxic forms of tau protein drive neurodegeneration by negatively affecting DNA packaging and the three dimensional architecture of the nucleus. She began her independent laboratory at the University of Texas Health San Antonio in 2015, and now serves as the Salame-Feraud Director of the Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research.

Dr. Frost leads work focused on the basic neurobiology underlying brain aging and neurodegeneration, with a strong emphasis on Alzheimer's disease and related tauopathies. She and her team employ a multi-system approach to rapidly identify, test, and validate hypotheses that are relevant to human disease. Early discovery takes place in Drosophila, a model organism that is well suited for investigating issues of causality in disease processes. To determine if studies are relevant to human disease, they complement Drosophila work with iPSC-based modeling, as well as neuropathological and computational analyses of mouse and postmortem human brain. Major efforts in the laboratory are focused on transposable elements, nuclear and genomic architecture, and RNA biology in the context of tauopathies and brain aging. Dr. Frost has recently led a phase IIa clinical trial in subjects with Alzheimer's disease based on the discoveries of her team. Her accomplishments have been recognized by an O'Donnell Award in Medicine, a CurePSP Standout Achievement Award, and the Oskar Fischer Prize.  

Brown Affiliations

Research Areas

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