Kopchick Fellowship advances Cancer Biology student Andrew Gillard’s work on brain tumor therapies

Cancer Biology PhD student Andrew Gillard is using the Dr. John J. Kopchick Fellowship to advance promising oncolytic viroimmunotherapy strategies for brain tumors. The fellowship allows him to focus full-time on exploring how to make cancer-targeting viruses more effective — work inspired by personal experience and driven by the goal of improving outcomes for future patients. As part of the Kopchick Fellows community, Gillard helped to shape the November 3 biennial Kopchick Symposium for students and faculty, themed Overcoming Barriers in Science.

Recognizing excellence: Mya Rodriguez receives 2025 Terry J. Crow, PhD, Scholarship in Neuroscience

Congratulations to Neuroscience PhD student Mya Rodriguez, who has been awarded the 2025 Terry J. Crow, PhD, Scholarship in Neuroscience for her academic excellence and leadership. Her research explores how brain cells sustain their health and function as we age.

October’s Paper of the Month reveals how a conserved protein complex across species may unlock new clues to Huntington’s disease

The answers to human diseases may lie in the biology we share across species. In his recent studies, Stephen Farmer, a PhD student in the Molecular and Translational Biology and Neuroscience programs in Sheng Zhang, PhD’s lab at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, investigated how conserved protein structures across species can advance understanding of Huntington’s disease. His findings show that the HTT-HAP40 complex is structurally conserved from model systems to humans and that a small region of HAP40, the BΦ motif, is crucial for HTT function — providing new insight into potential therapeutic targets for this neurodegenerative disorder.