MD
FRCP FRCPA
Professor, Department of Pathology, The University of Melbourne
Director of Research Laboratories, Mental Health Research
Institute of Victoria
The 2002 Mayne Florey Medal
was awarded to Professor Colin L Masters for his work
related to Alzheimer’s disease, particularly the characterisation
of the amyloid protein, studies of the mechanisms of its
effects in Alzheimer’s disease and the development of
new approaches to treat the disorder.
Colin Masters has dedicated the last 32 years to a focussed
and intense study of neurodegenerative diseases including
Creutzfeld Jacob disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
The seminal achievement of Professor Colin Masters in the
field of neuroscience has been his elucidation of the molecular,
genetic and biochemical pathways now universally acknowledged
as underlying Alzheimer’s disease.
With his collaborators, including Konrad Beyreuther of Germany,
Colin Masters has shown the diseased brain to be under oxidative
stress and that this stress is caused by the toxicity of
Aβ amyloid, the core molecule he first described and,
through genetic studies, demonstrated to be central to the
disease process.
In elucidating the key molecular steps in the cause of the
disease he characterised the amyloid precursor, its gene
regulation, sequenced the plaque amyloid molecule, established
methods of assaying key molecules in blood, described secretory
pathways and transport in nerve cells of the amyloid precursor,
as well as defining the structural moieties involved in
the aggregation of amyloid. Among other achievements he
then described (with Ashley Bush) the importance of metal
ions in the aggregation of amyloid molecules to form fibrils,
plaques and tangles in the brain.
These discoveries in structural and enzymic biochemistry
have been pivotal to the current development of new treatment
regimes which are providing steps toward effective treatments
for this debilitating disease. Just when these breakthroughs
in treating, or preventing, Alzheimer’s disease will occur
is hard to say. But when they do come, it is extremely likely
that they will rely on the groundbreaking work of Colin
Masters.
