Giuseppina TescoDr. Giuseppina Tesco is an Associate Professor (with tenure) at Tufts University. She received her MD and PhD from the University of Florence, Italy. She also completed her residency in Neurology at the University of Florence. In 1995, she was awarde a prestigious Fogarty Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow award to study the role of potassium channels in the learning and memory process and in Alzheimer's disease at NINDS. In 1997, she joined the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School where she became Assistant Professor. In 2009 Dr. Tesco accepted a Faculty position at Tufts University. Her research focuses on Alzheimer's Disease (AD). She identified a novel mechanism that regulates BACE1 levels and activity via the trafficking molecules GGA1 and GGA3 (golgi-localized gamma-ear-containing ARF binding protein 1-3). She was the first one to demonstrate that BACE1 is normally degraded in the lysosomes and that caspase-mediated cleavage of GGA3 and GGA1 produces BACE1 elevation in murine models of stroke and TBI. The importance of GGAs' control of BACE1 levels was supported by the observation that, in brain tissue from Alzheimer's patients, reductions in GGA1 and 3 were tightly correlated with elevations in BACE1, particularly in those areas most affected by the disease. Her work indicates that stroke and head trauma, can trigger a series of biochemical events that increase amyloid-beta production in the brain, and subsequent development of AD. Dr. Tesco's studies may, ultimately, prove essential for the development of novel therapies that interfere with these biochemical signaling events and, in the process, reduce the risk of Alzheimer's Disease in stroke and head trauma patients. Read More Read Less