Brain waste clearance research advances in Australia and South Korea

Researchers in South Australia have received a major National Health and Medical Research Council Investigator Grant to lead a five‑year program investigating how brain cells recognise and remove damaged proteins. Dr Julian Carosi of SAHMRI and the University of Adelaide says the work will focus on autophagy and could lead to new therapies for dementia, noting, "Damaged proteins such as Tau can become sticky, form aggregates and accumulate in the brain… My goal is to uncover how these damage‑sensing systems work at a molecular level and explore ways to redirect them to selectively destroy harmful proteins."

In South Korea, an international team headed by Dr Koh Gou‑young of the Institute for Basic Science identified tiny openings in the brain’s protective membrane—arachnoid fenestrations—that allow cerebrospinal fluid to drain waste toward lymph nodes. Published in *Cell*, the discovery clarifies how the brain clears toxic proteins such as amyloid‑beta, a key factor in Alzheimer’s disease, and may inform future dementia treatments.