Jacob Ayers

Jacob Ayers is Associate Adjunct Professor at the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, where his research investigates protein misfolding mechanisms in prion diseases and related neurodegenerative disorders.

Core research examines: 1) Prion-like propagation of misfolded proteins in ALS and related disorders; 2) Strain-specific pathology in tauopathies and synucleinopathies; and 3) Transgenic model development for neurodegenerative disease research. His laboratory employs molecular, cellular, and in vivo approaches to understand disease transmission mechanisms.

Recent work establishes distinct prion strains for α-synuclein pathology in dementia with Lewy bodies versus multiple system atrophy. Publications also characterize tau prion transmission in novel rodent models and identify RNA-binding properties of pathological tau aggregates.