Rebecca A Frake

Rebecca A Frake is an NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Neurology and a Registrar in Neurology and General Internal Medicine at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying brain ageing and neurodegenerative diseases, with a particular interest in neuronal waste clearance processes. She combines clinical expertise in neurology with molecular neuroscience research, utilizing extracellular vesicles as biomarkers for neurotoxic protein clearance and organelle dysfunction in divergent human cohorts.

• PhD (University of Cambridge, 2017): Characterization of vinexin (SORBS3) as an autophagy regulator in brain ageing.
• Medical Degree (2019): Academic foundation training at Edinburgh, including clinical work in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences and postdoctoral research on Huntington's disease presynaptic dysfunction.
• Current Role (2024): NIHR Clinical Lecturer at Oxford, integrating neurology registrar training with research on SuperAgers and neurodegenerative disease mechanisms.

Her work leverages extreme human phenotypes—SuperAgers with preserved cognition and patients with severe neurodegeneration—to investigate neuronal resilience factors. By analyzing neuronally-derived extracellular vesicles in serum samples, she aims to uncover waste clearance pathways that may prevent age-related neurodegeneration. Collaborative networks and longitudinal cohort development are central to her research strategy.

Frake's interdisciplinary approach bridges clinical neurology and molecular neuroscience, targeting autophagy and vesicle biology as key areas for therapeutic innovation. Her email contact is rebecca.frake@ndcn.ox.ac.uk, and she is affiliated with the Molecular Neurodegeneration Research Group.