Dr. Nora Bengoa-Vergniory is a principal investigator at the Achucarro Basque Center for Neuroscience (Spain). After receiving her PhD from the University of the Basque Country for her studies of the early stages of neuronal differentiation in human stem cells, she moved to Oxford University (UK) to complete her postdoctoral training. There, she focused on the study of aggregation and glial activation in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. She and her colleagues discovered a novel neuroprotective role for the regulatory factor REST/NRSF as well as the molecular tweezer CLR01. As a specialist in the early detection of protein aggregates using a variety of techniques, she and her colleagues recently developed a novel assay for the early detection of tau aggregates. To develop disease-modifying therapies for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, her laboratory focusses on uncovering the crosstalk between aggregates and glial cells in disease.