The Rainwater Prize Program

Winner of The Rainwater Prize for Outstanding Innovation in Neurodegenerative Disease Research

Dr. Michel Goedert has an extensive career of high-impact contributions to tauopathy research. In 1988, he made a name for himself by showing that tau protein (which he discovered exists as six isoforms in adult human brain) is an integral component of the toxic intracellular filaments in Alzheimer’s disease. In 1996, he showed that cofactors, such as heparin and other sulphated glycosaminoglycans, induce the normally soluble tau protein to assemble into insoluble filaments. In 1998 Dr. Goedert and colleagues identified one of the first mutations in MAPT, the tau gene, that causes frontotemporal dementia. To date, sixty-two disease-causing mutations in MAPT are known. In 2009, he used some of the transgenic lines expressing wild-type or mutant human tau protein that he had previously produced, to demonstrate the seeded aggregation and spreading of assembled tau in brain. Since 2017, Dr. Goedert collaboratively determined the structures of tau filaments from Alzheimer’s disease, Pick’s disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy. In summary, Dr. Goedert has helped to establish the now accepted idea that the assembly of tau protein into abnormal filaments is central to tauopathies and, through his structural work, has paved the way for the development of effective therapeutic strategies. Dr. Goedert was also praised by the Selection Committee for his dedication towards mentoring early-career scientists. Dr. Roxana Carare, Jury Member of the Rainwater Prize, told how Dr. Goedert would cross the city to have regular discussions with graduate students, at times spending hours talking to individual students or groups of trainees. Dr. Goedert continues to serve on numerous advisory boards and runs a highly productive research laboratory, while providing training and reagents to scientists all over the world. Importantly, Dr. Goedert’s mouse line transgenic for human mutant P301S tau is heavily used by investigators of the Tau Consortium. He is widely known as a dedicated collaborator and sharer of resources.

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Winner of The Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early-Career Scientist

Dr. Patrick Hsu is a geneticist and bioengineer, and Assistant Professor and Deb Faculty Fellow in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. His work aims to understand and manipulate the genetic circuits that control brain and immune cell function for the next generation of gene and cell therapies.

At Berkeley Bioengineering, Dr. Hsu’s research group integrates diverse approaches in synthetic biology, bioengineering, and genomics to develop new molecular technologies for genome and transcriptome engineering. CRISPR tools that systematically reverse-engineer cellular processes through rapid and precise perturbations enable causal links between genetic changes and fundamental disease mechanisms. Recently, the Hsu lab discovered and developed novel CRISPR systems that expand the gene editing toolbox beyond DNA to RNA, which they used to correct dysregulated tau pre-mRNA in neurons from FTD patients. Current directions involve new ways to edit the post-mitotic genome at scale to understand polygenic brain diseases.

Dr. Hsu received A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. At the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, he contributed to the early development of CRISPR-Cas9 technologies for human genome editing. As a group leader at Editas Medicine, he then directed preclinical discovery projects to translate these tools for treating human genetic disorders. Dr. Hsu was a Principal Investigator and Salk Faculty Fellow at the Salk Institute from 2015-2019 before moving to the Department of Bioengineering at UC Berkeley. He has been recognized in Forbes’ 30 Under 30, the NIH Early Independence Award, the MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35, Berkeley Engineering’s Deb Faculty Fellowship, and the Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early-Career Scientists.

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About the Program

The Rainwater Prize Program is designed to promote four main prize categories, one of which is an annual prize, the second an early-career prize, and the last two being milestone/breakthrough prizes that are only awarded upon achievement of the defined parameters.

The objective of all the prize categories is to encourage and accelerate scientific progress toward new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases by;

1. Enhancing awareness of the critical gaps in neurodegenerative research.
2. Attracting researchers to work on tauopathies.
3. Awarding scientific achievements that lead to new treatments for PSP.

The Prizes are as follows:

• The Rainwater Prize for Outstanding Innovation in Neurodegenerative Research
• The Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early-Career Scientists
• The Rainwater Milestone Prize for Advances in Tauopathy Research
• The Rainwater Breakthrough Prize for Effective Treatments in PSP

While the Rainwater Prize for Outstanding Innovation in Neurodegenerative Research annual prize will be awarded for the first time in 2020, and each year after, the Milestone and Breakthrough prizes may or may not be awarded based on this year’s nominations and discoveries. All awards may be awarded to individuals or shared as teams at the discretion of the selection committee.

Know a deserving scientist? Nominate Here.

The Rainwater Prize for Outstanding Innovation in Neurodegenerative Research

This prize recognizes investigator(s) whose work is considered a significant contribution to our understanding of Tau-related diseases.  Nominees will be considered through a non-self-nomination process for published, peer-reviewed tau-related research. The nominations are open for all researchers, from all countries, and research institutional affiliations.  Awardees will be chosen by a committee of international scientific leaders from a wide range of fields and backgrounds. The awardee will be chosen based on their scientific contributions, leadership, mentorship, and overall contributions to the scientific community.

This award will consist of a $250K prize provided through a fund started by Richard Rainwater at the North Texas Community Foundation. While it is our hope that the prize money will be used to further the recipient’s research in neurodegenerative disease, the prize recipient will only be able to use the funds for non-profit purposes.

The awardee(s) will be honored at an award presentation ceremony in Las Colinas, TX, February 22nd, 2021. All reasonable, pre-approved travel expenses for awardee(s) will be covered by the foundation. The awardee will also be invited to present their findings at a future meeting co-hosted by the Rainwater Charitable Foundation.

The Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early-Career Scientists

This prize is intended to reward outstanding achievements of a scientist either as a first author or senior author on published neurodegenerative disease research findings.  This prize aims to support exceptionally productive scientists who are in the early formative stages of their academic career (within 5 years of PI appointment) and who plan to make a long-term career commitment to research aligned with the mission areas of the Rainwater Charitable Foundation.   Nominees will be considered through a non-self-nomination process for published, peer-reviewed neurodegenerative disease research.  Awardees will be chosen by a committee of international scientific leaders from a wide range of fields and backgrounds. The awardee will be chosen based on their scientific contributions, leadership, mentorship, and overall contributions to the scientific community.

This award will consist of a $150K prize provided through a fund started by Richard Rainwater at the North Texas Community Foundation. While it is our hope that the prize money will be used to further the recipient’s research in neurodegenerative disease, the prize recipient will only be able to use the funds for non-profit purposes.

After close of nominations, a follow-up email may be sent to finalist nominees to request a 1-2 page summary of their research program aims and strategy. The awardee(s) will be honored at an award presentation ceremony in Las Colinas, TX, February 22nd, 2021. All reasonable, pre-approved travel expenses for awardee(s) will be covered by the foundation. The awardee will also be invited to present their findings at a future meeting co-hosted by the Rainwater Charitable Foundation.

The Rainwater Milestone Prize for Advances in Tauopathy Research

This prize recognizes investigator(s) whose work is considered a significant contribution to our understanding of Tau-related diseases by addressing critical gaps in technology and disease knowledge that will help the scientific community develop effective treatments. Nominees will be considered through a non-self-nomination process for published, peer-reviewed tau-related research and demonstration of open sharing of data and technology or models.  The nominations are open for all researchers, from all countries, and research institutional affiliations.

Awardees will be chosen by a committee of international scientific leaders from a wide range of fields and backgrounds. The awardee will be chosen based on their scientific contributions to the specified milestones, demonstrated willingness to collaborate and share scientific resources, leadership, mentorship, and overall contributions to the scientific community.

This prize will be awarded upon milestone completion and may or may not be awarded each year. This award may be awarded to individuals or teams of scientists.

Current Milestone Prize categories:

To find a better treatment, we need to better understand the disease –

Milestone Prize: Structure, Function, and Disease Mechanisms

• Tau protein modifications and how these function in health and disease
• Mechanism of Tau aggregation and transmission (inside and outside cell)
• Mechanism of glial and neuronal loss

For Clinical trials to be more effective we must be able to stratify patients more accurately for clinical trials and detect tauopathies early –

Milestone Prize: Risk and Prevention

• Genetic/Epigenetic biomarkers, Polygenic risk assessment
• Predictors of Tau normal vs. dysfunction
• Progression monitoring
• Clinical trial stratification

To make the discoveries happen, we need better models and technology that can predict human response to treatments –

Milestone Prize: Advances in Drug Development Models and Technology

• Mouse or other in vivo, clinically relevant model
• Clinical drug efficacy prediction models
• Advances in imaging

This award will consist of an up to $2M prize provided through a fund started by Richard Rainwater at the North Texas Community Foundation. While it is our hope that the prize money will be used to further the recipient’s neurodegenerative disease research, the prize recipient will only be able to use the funds for non-profit purposes.

The awardee(s) will be honored at an award presentation ceremony in Las Colinas, TX, February 22nd, 2021. All reasonable, pre-approved travel expenses for awardee(s) will be covered by the foundation. The awardee will also be invited to present their findings at a future meeting co-hosted by the Rainwater Charitable Foundation.

The Rainwater Breakthrough Prize for Effective Treatments in PSP

This prize recognizes investigator(s) whose work is considered a significant contribution to the development of effective treatments for PSP. Nominees will be considered through a non-self-nomination process for published, peer-reviewed PSP-related research that led to a treatment that has significant improvement of welfare for patients.  The nominations are open for all researchers, from all countries, and research institutional affiliations.

Awardees will be chosen by a committee of international scientific leaders from a wide range of fields and backgrounds. The awardee will be chosen based on their scientific contributions that ultimately led to the development of treatments for PSP, demonstrated willingness to collaborate and share scientific resources, leadership, mentorship, and overall contributions to the scientific community.

This prize will be awarded to the basic science, translational research that led to the development and clinical use of a treatment with significant, measurable improvement of life for PSP patients. This prize may or may not be awarded each year and may be awarded to individuals or teams of scientists.

Breakthrough Prize categories:

• $2M – FDA approved treatment that meaningfully extends good quality of life for patients
• $4M – FDA approved treatment that cures PSP early in progression
• $10M – FDA approved treatment that prevents PSP and/or reverses disease damage

This award will consist of an up to $10M prize provided through a fund started by Richard Rainwater at the North Texas Community Foundation. While it is our hope that the prize money will be used to further the recipient’s neurodegenerative disease research, the prize recipient will only be able to use the funds for non-profit purposes.

If awarded in this round, the awardee(s) will be honored at an award presentation ceremony in Las Colinas, TX, February 22nd, 2021. All reasonable, pre-approved travel expenses for awardee(s) will be covered by the foundation. The awardee will also be invited to present their findings at a future meeting co-hosted by the Rainwater Charitable Foundation.

About the Application

Eligibility of Nominees and Nominators

Eligible Nominees must:

• Have made significant contributions to research in Tau-related diseases within the scope of the prize for which the nominee is being considered.

The following are not eligible:

• Self-nominations

Anyone can nominate an individual or team. 

Application Process

Anyone is eligible to submit one nomination for an award, and only one nomination per calendar year. Self-nominations are not permitted. Nominations will be submitted through an online nomination form.

Completed applications submitted no later than June 15th, 2020 will be prescreened for continued eligibility and reviewed by the selection committee.

The nominee selected for an award will be contacted in October 2020 to confirm acceptance of the award and the terms of the award. The awardee must be able to accept the award at a ceremony in Las Colinas, TX, February 22nd, 2021 and invited to give a brief presentation. The awardee must allow for his/her photo, information of award, ceremony details and discovery contributions to be publicly available. If the award is not accepted, or the recipient no longer eligible, the nominee is required to keep all notices around their selection confidential. An awardee that accepts the award must keep all results of the prize competition confidential until the Rainwater Charitable Foundation official award announcement is released.

Evaluation Criteria

Nominees who have met all eligibility criteria and preliminary screening will be reviewed by the selection committee.  The following criteria will be used to evaluate the applications for the Rainwater Prize Program:

Research Discovery (Weight 70%) – The nominee must have contributed significantly to the discovery for which the award category outlines.  The scope of review will involve applicability to award nominated for, quality of peer-reviewed research findings, validation by the scientific community, research citations, significant impact for neurodegenerative disease, applicability to a tauopathy, contribution to development of technology or platform, and has the finding been incorporated into common teaching and across the scientific community.

Leadership (weight 30%) – The nominee(s) must be in good standing within their institution and within the scientific community.  The nominee(s) are evaluated based on their level of collaboration, data sharing and technology sharing, leadership, mentoring, trainee success, international recognition, their engagement in diversity and equity and their overall contributions to the scientific community through outreach and education.

A nominee’s general societal contributions will be taken in to account should all other scoring between scientific contributions and leadership among top candidates be considered equal.

Know a deserving scientist? Nominate Here.

2019/2020 Rainwater Prize Selection Committee Members