A Montana-based expert in dementia will discuss brain harm and healing during a community presentation on Friday, Jan. 12 at 7 p.m. at the Hamilton High School Performing Arts Center, 327 Fairgrounds Road. The talk by Renee A. Reijo Pera, Ph.D., is part of a free outreach program sponsored by Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML). The hour-long presentation is intended for a general audience.
Dr. Pera is President and CEO of the McLaughlin Research Institute in Great Falls, a role she began in 2021. She also is Dean of Research for Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Montana. Her talk is titled, “Neuro-regeneration in dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and age-related neural degeneration.”
For several decades McLaughlin scientists and RML scientists have collaborated on brain disease research projects. McLaughlin Research Institute opened in 1954 to conduct independent biological research, initially focusing on what then was a new field of tissue transplantation. Montana natives and research legends Irv Weissman and Leroy Hood helped develop McLaughlin into a state-of-the-art neurological disease research campus.
Dr. Pera said her presentation will describe a “vision of ending neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), frontal temporal dementia and others.” These diseases are increasing in the United States. In Montana, it is estimated that at least 27,000 people suffer from Alzheimer’s, a figure that Dr. Pera said is likely underdiagnosed and possibly closer to 40,000.
“Each of these people has caregivers and others whose lives are greatly affected,” she said. “The annual cost in the U.S. is more than $500 million. We seek to bring solutions through basic, translational and clinical research to understand and cure these diseases.”
At McLaughlin, Dr. Pera leads a research team that has focused on Parkinson’s disease, specifically trying to better understand and visualize how mutations affect brain cells called neurons. These studies have positioned the group as a leader in the field of establishing novel mouse models of human disease.
From 2013 to 2019, Dr. Pera worked at Montana State University where she was Vice President for Research, Economic Development and Graduate Education; professor of cell biology and neurosciences; and professor of chemistry and biochemistry. Prior to that she was a professor of regenerative medicine at Stanford University from 2007-2013.
“Dr. Pera’s contributions to the field of regenerative medicine while she taught at Stanford were truly groundbreaking and are offering hope to the many people impacted by neurodegenerative diseases,” RML Associate Director for Scientific Management Dr. Marshall Bloom said. “We are fortunate to have her speak in Hamilton and even more fortunate to have her leading one of Montana’s premier research facilities.”
RML is part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. NIAID conducts and supports research—at the National Institutes of Health, throughout the United States, and worldwide—to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website<http://www.niaid.nih.gov>.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.