Pershing Square Foundation Awards “MIND” Prize to Eight Pioneering Researchers

Each Prize winner to receive $750,000 over three years

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Pershing Square Foundation today announced the eight winners of the “MIND” Prize (Maximizing Innovation in Neuroscience Discovery). Through the Prize, the Foundation strives to change the paradigm of neuroscience research by creating a community of next-frontier thinkers who can uncover a deeper understanding of the brain and cognition. Breakthroughs in basic scientific and translational research will yield critical tools for and knowledge of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia, which affect millions of people worldwide.

The MIND Prize will catalyze novel interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work by facilitating collaborations across academic departments and institutions and amongst the academic, biomedical industry, philanthropic, and business communities. The 2026 Prize winners will each receive $750,000, distributed $250,000 per year for three years.

“Thanks to advanced technologies and human creativity, Alzheimer’s Disease and her siblings are finally being considered remediable disorders of the human condition,” said Pershing Square Foundation Trustee, Neri Oxman, PhD. “This year’s cohort reflects the promise of technological and biological research serendipity, tying molecular structures with behavioral patterns and genetic predispositions with the power of AI. We are excited to step into a future where the power of research can untangle the Eldredge knot that is AD.”

• Sarah Ackerman, PhD, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis: Dr. Ackerman is investigating whether the exchange of energy-producing mitochondria between glial cells and neurons is required for healthy brain aging. Using advanced imaging and genetic tools across flies, zebrafish, and human brain samples, her lab will track how this process changes with age and in Alzheimer’s disease. This work could reveal a new pathway to restore neuronal function and slow neurodegeneration.

• Corina Amor Vegas, MD, PhD, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: Dr. Amor is developing a new CAR T cell–based strategy for Alzheimer’s disease by targeting damaged, inflammatory aging cells outside the brain. Her project will investigate how dysfunctional aging peripheral tissues contribute to neurodegeneration and will develop next-generation CAR T cell therapies engineered directly in the body, with the goal of creating a safer and long-lasting approach to prevent or treat cognitive decline.

• Ryan Corces, PhD, Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease: Dr. Corces is investigating why many families with Alzheimer’s disease have no mutations in known Alzheimer’s genes. His project will use machine learning and CRISPR tools to identify and test genetic variants present in these families, with the goal of uncovering new drivers and therapeutic targets for Alzheimer’s disease.

• Pascal Geldsetzer, MD, PhD, Stanford University: Dr. Geldsetzer’s group has devised a novel natural experiment approach that overcomes common bias concerns in observational data analyses to generate a compelling body of evidence of a protective effect of shingles vaccination for dementia. In this project, he will attempt to leverage clinical trial data to more conclusively test this relationship and provide mechanistic insights.

• Daniel Hochbaum, PhD, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: Dr. Hochbaum is investigating how age-related declines in thyroid hormone signaling in the brain may contribute to cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. His project will define how inflammation disrupts local production of the active thyroid hormone T3 and test whether restoring brain T3 signaling can rescue synaptic and behavioral deficits in Alzheimer’s models, potentially revealing a new endocrine-based strategy to slow neurodegeneration.

• Guosong Hong, PhD, Stanford University: Dr. Hong is developing a novel imaging platform to track how Alzheimer’s disease disrupts neural circuits over time. His project will use a safe, reversible method that temporarily makes the scalp, skull, and brain tissue transparent to repeatedly image the same deep-brain neurons in living mice, revealing how neural activity and connectivity break down during memory decline.

• Maxim Prigozhin, PhD, Harvard University: Dr. Prigozhin is developing a new imaging technology that could transform how scientists study Alzheimer’s disease by enabling simultaneous visualization of protein markers and brain ultrastructure at nanometer resolution. His project will create cathodoluminescent molecular tags that can be excited with the electron beam directly during electron microscopy, allowing multicolor 3D mapping of amyloid and tau pathology within intact neural circuits and synapses.

• Marissa Scavuzzo, PhD, Institute for Glial Sciences, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine: Dr. Scavuzzo is investigating how enteric glia, key cells in the gut’s nervous system, help maintain metabolic and inflammatory balance and why this control may fail in neurodegenerative disease. Her project will map specialized enteric glial subtypes, test how diet and cytokine signaling push them into harmful states, and use hibernating species to uncover natural resilience mechanisms that could inspire new therapies targeting the gut–brain axis.

As part of the selection process, the MIND Prize relied on the guidance of a highly accomplished scientific advisory board, including:

• Paola Arlotta, PhD, Golub Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University

• Richard Axel, MD, Nobel Laureate; Co-director, Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University; University Professor, Columbia University; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

• Ed Boyden, PhD, Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT; MIT McGovern Institute for Brain Research; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

• Ali Brivanlou, PhD, Robert & Harriet Heilbrunn Professor, Head of Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology, and Synthetic Embryology, The Rockefeller University; Co-founder, Rumi Scientific Inc.

• Navdeep Chandel, PhD, David W. Cugell Professor of Medicine & Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

• Moses Chao, PhD, Professor of Cell Biology, Physiology & Neuroscience, and Psychiatry, NYU Langone School of Medicine

• Anne Churchland, PhD, Professor, Arnold Scheibel Chair of Neuroscience, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles

• Mikael Dolsten, MD, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer and President, Worldwide Research, Development and Medical, Pfizer, Inc.

• Winrich Freiwald, PhD, Denise and Eugene W. Chinery Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Neural Systems, The Rockefeller University

• Fred “Rusty” Gage, PhD, Professor, Laboratory of Genetics, Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Disease, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies

• Michael E. Greenberg, PhD, Nathan Marsh Pusey Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University

• Richard Isaacson, MD, Director of Brain Health, Atria Institute; Adjunct Associate Professor of Neurology, Weill Cornell Medicine

• Dean Kamen, Founder, FIRST; President, DEKA Research & Development Corporation

• Sergiu Pasca, MD, Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Bonnie Uytengsu and Family Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis Program, Stanford University

• Gregory A. Petsko, PhD, Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women’s Hospital; Tauber Professor Biochemistry and Chemistry, Emeritus, Brandeis University; Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University

• James Rothman, PhD, Nobel Laureate; Sterling Professor of Cell Biology; Professor of Chemistry; Director, Nanobiology Institute, Yale University

• Bernardo Sabatini, MD, PhD, Alice and Rodman W. Moorhead III Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School

• Scott A. Small, MD, Director, Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center; Boris and Rose Katz Professor of Neurology, The Taub Institute, The Sergievsky Center; Departments of Neurology, Psychiatry, Radiology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center

• Hermann Steller, PhD, Professor and Head of Laboratory, Laboratory of Apoptosis and Cancer Biology, The Rockefeller University

• Beth Stevens, PhD, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Institute Member, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Lavine Family Research Chair, F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Boston Children’s Hospital

• Bruce Stillman, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

• Richard Tsien, PhD, Founding Director, Neuroscience Institute; Druckenmiller Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience and Physiology, NYU Langone Medical Center

• Stacie Weninger, PhD, President, FBRI

• George Yancopoulos, MD, PhD, Co-Founder, Co-Chairman, President and Chief Scientific Officer, Regeneron

• Michael Young, PhD, Nobel Laureate; Richard and Jeanne Fisher Professor, The Rockefeller University

• Anthony Zador, MD, PhD, Alle Davis Harrison Professor of Neuroscience, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

• Feng Zhang, PhD, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Core Member, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT; James and Patricia Poitras Professor in Neuroscience, MIT; Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biological Engineering, MIT

About The Pershing Square Foundation:

The Pershing Square Foundation (PSF) is a family foundation established in 2006 to support exceptional leaders and innovative organizations that tackle important issues and deliver scalable and sustainable global impact. PSF has committed more than $930 million in grants and social investments in target areas including health and medicine, education, economic development, environment, and innovation. Bill Ackman and Neri Oxman are co-trustees of the Foundation. For more information, visit: www.pershingsquarefoundation.org.

Contacts

Press contact:
[email protected]