Avik Roy, PhD in Neuroscience, focuses on identifying molecular targets and designing small molecular drugs to combat neurodegenerative diseases. He demonstrated that the loss of function in the bpoz2 gene plays a crucial role in the development of Lewy body pathology. His pioneering work decoding the role of an ankyrin repeat-rich protein BPOZ2 in ameliorating alpha-synuclein pathology earned him the Rapid Response Innovation Award from the Michael J Fox Foundation of Parkinson's Disease. His discovery of KeptideTM, an intranasal therapeutic for COVID-19, received a fast-track non-provisional patent (#11,078,242) in 2021. He has also secured a patent (#10,617,664) for three memory-inducing drugs that can improve the hippocampal function of memory and learning. He is the recipient of the John E Trufant Award (2009), the Young Investigator Award (2009; American Society of Neurochemistry), the Rapid Response Innovation Award (2014), the Ramsay Award (2022; Solve ME Initiative), and an NIH exploratory award (R21NS129021). Since 2021, Dr. Roy has been serving as the Chief Scientific Officer at Simmaron Research INC, where he continues his scientific journey to decode the molecular mechanism of chronic neuroinflammatory diseases. Dr. Roy’s work has been published in over 65 peer-reviewed articles with over 4500 citations.