Leading Alzheimer’s Disease Researcher Returns to OU
After making her mark in the world of Alzheimer's research, a University of Oklahoma graduate is returning to Oklahoma to continue her career. Heather Rice, Ph.D., a Goldwater Scholar, earned her bachelor of science degree in zoology-biomedical sciences at OU and went on to earn a doctoral degree in neurobiology from Harvard University.
Rice decided to return after OUHSC wasrecently awarded $10.7 million COBRE (Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence) federal grant for Geroscience research. This grant will help launch a lab to investigate what a key protein involved in Alzheimer’s disease is normally doing in the healthy brain. Examination of this normal function could lead to the ability to counteract disease processes and develop novel strategies for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
“The COBRE program, along with the efforts led by Dr. William Sonntag and others at the Reynolds Oklahoma Center on Aging, has convinced me that research on brain aging and diseases is a priority at OUHSC and will continue to expand,” Rice said. “As a native Oklahoman and OU alum, it’s an exciting opportunity for me to return to OU and contribute to driving Alzheimer’s disease research forward in my home state. I look forward to providing graduate students at OUHSC with the mentoring and training like that which I was fortunate to receive while at OU and throughout my career.”
“Heather is a shining example of the significant impact talented students dedicated to research can have on OU,” said Randy Hewes, dean of the Graduate College. “She has studied all over the world and elected to return to OU to participate in ground-breaking research on Alzheimer’s disease. This is a huge win for our University.”
From 2013-2019, Rice continued postdoctoral training at VIB (Flemish Institute for Biotechnology) and KU Leuven in Leuven, Belgium. Her 2019 publication in Science earned enough citations to place it in the top 1% of the academic field of Neuroscience and Behavior for the publication year, according to Web of Science. She also received an Alzheimer’s Association Research Fellowship and a Junior Faculty Award at the Alzheimer’s Disease/Parkinson’s Disease Conference 2019.
Rice is looking forward to the collaborative work environment within the OUHSC and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
Article Published: Wednesday, September 11, 2019