Koorosh Shahpasand, PhD, joins LMP in neuroscience

Koorosh Shahpasand, PhD, joined LMP as an assistant professor effective October 14.

Shahpasand comes to us from the Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology in Tehran, Iran, where he was head of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. He received a PhD from the Department of Biological Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japan and was a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at BIDMC, Harvard Medical School.

Shahpasand has focused his research on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias, in particular p-tau conformations in the development and treatment of tauopathies. He and his colleagues have been exploring tauopathy molecular mechanisms of AD, Parkinson’s disease, bipolar disorder, multiple sclerosis, diabetes mellitus, macular degeneration, and spinal cord injury. Among his long-term research goals is finding the cause of p-tau neurotoxicity as well as identifying genes that mediate neurodegeneration. 

Shahpasand's team has identified the pathogenic conformation of tau and has developed a fully human monoclonal antibody against that tau conformer. They completed preclinical data work and commenced clinical trial studies. The phase I trial in Farhikhtegan Hospital, Tehran, Iran, showed significantly improved cognitive function among trial subjects upon treatment, a finding confirmed by the FDA-approved Integrated Cognitive Assessment (ICA) test.  Shahpasand and his colleagues will soon launch a phase II trial.