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Jillian Shaw is the associate director of the Ladders to Cures Scientific Accelerator at the ӳ����ý of MIT and Harvard, where she is an institute scientist. 

At the ӳ����ý, she is focused on providing scientific and strategic direction for the Ladders to Cures Accelerator, an initiative focused on uncovering “nodal” biological pathways to accelerate treatments for patients with genetically defined diseases with a shared mechanism of action. She is helping to develop a portfolio of proof-of-concept therapeutics projects that are modality agnostic. 

Her research interests focused on the functional interactions between Down syndrome critical region 1 (DSCR1) protein and amyloid precursor protein (APP) – two proteins that are upregulated in Down syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease. She studied the impact of DSCR1 regulation in facilitating the transport of synaptic proteins and mitochondria affected by APP upregulation. Building on this interest in synaptic physiology, she continued to explore the synaptic basis of neural circuit dysfunction in the context of the neurodevelopmental disorder fragile X syndrome.

In 2020, she joined the laboratory of Anna Greka at the ӳ����ý as a scientific advisor focused on strategy and operations for deploying ӳ����ý technology (e.g., high-content imaging screens and transcriptomics) to dissect fundamental mechanisms of disrupted cellular homeostasis in the context of neurodevelopmental, metabolic, and degenerative diseases. Currently, she organizes a highly interactive scientific forum, the Ladders to Cures Accelerator Meeting, focused on bringing together scientists, physicians, ӳ����ý platform directors, AI and machine learning experts, and patient advocacy groups to work together on therapeutic-focused programs for rare genetic diseases.

Shaw received her B.A. in neuroscience from Vassar College (Honors) and Ph.D. in neuroscience at the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute at the University of Southern California, and conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University.