Judith A. Steen: FLEXIVERSE: From Proteoforms to Mechanisms, Structures and Medicines

Dr. Judith Steen is Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Neuroproteomics Laboratory at Boston Children's Hospital. Her pioneering work has transformed neurodegeneration research through innovative quantitative proteomics and mass spectrometry. Prof. Steen developed the FLEXIQuant platform to quantify protein post-translational modifications and demonstrated that tau modifications accumulate in a disease-stage-specific sequence. This led to the discovery of phospho-217 tau, now an FDA-approved biomarker for early Alzheimer's disease diagnosis, and established the need for stage-specific therapeutic approaches. Her laboratory has also shown that stress induces translation of noncoding RNAs into proteins and revealed that different tauopathies possess distinct molecular signatures, challenging previous assumptions and supporting disease-specific treatments.