UMass Chan Paul J. DiMare Center
and Daryl A. Bosco, PhD, professor, Paul J. DiMare Chair in Neurodegenerative Disease
Finding a cure for the incurables is a profound mission for the principal investigators at UMass Chan Medical School. On April 9, 2025, the UMass Board of Trustees voted to name the new UMass Chan education and research building the Paul J. DiMare Center due to the partnership by the DiMare family and the Paul J. DiMare Foundation’s philanthropic gift of $35 million to UMass Chan to support the advancement of neurodegenerative and genetic disease research, with a heavy focus on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and to support UMass Chan’s recruitment and training of biomedical research faculty.
Daryl A. Bosco, PhD, Associate Vice Chair of Research, in the Department of Neurology, and Paul J. DiMare Chair in Neurodegenerative Disease, joined UMass Chan Medical School in October 2008 as a neurology faculty member and principal investigator of Bosco Lab. Dr. Bosco specializes in neurodegenerative disease research, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Dr. Bosco recently shared, “I am deeply grateful to the DiMare family for their extraordinary generosity and commitment to advancing scientific discovery in ALS research through their recent donations to UMass Chan Medical School. We share the DiMare family’s vision of ‘curing the incurable’ by starting new investigations into the causes of sporadic ALS.”
As an innovative researcher, the Bosco Laboratory investigates the mechanisms underlying ALS and related disorders such as FTD, how stress, TBI and neuroinflammation contribute to these neurological disorders by focusing on protein misfolding which increases the toxic function, and the loss of normal function associated with the pathogenic forms of SOD1 and FUS/TLS; studying the cytoplasmic-RNA stress granules of ALS/FTD associated RNA-binding proteins; modeling ALS/FTD with human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) differentiating iPSCs into microglia.
Dr. Bosco, a Brandeis University alumnus, earned her PhD in bio-organic chemistry. She completed her post-doctoral fellowship at the Scripps Research Institute, studying protein structure and misfolding in the context of neurodegeneration. Dr. Bosco began her faculty career as an Instructor at Harvard Medical School, working in the lab of Professor Robert H. Brown, Jr., MD, DPhil, on sporadic ALS.
Dr. Bosco has continued to gain professional achievements for her contributions to neuroscience and biomedical science education. As an award recipient for ‘Outstanding Research Mentoring’, from UMass Chan, Dr. Bosco has received recognitions, including her promotion to professor in 2021, and appointment to associate vice chair of research in 2023. Her most recent accommodation, which acknowledges being named, the Paul J. DiMare Chair in Neurodegenerative Disease, was received in 2024.
Bosco Lab has supported ten graduate students who successfully defended their PhD theses, two of whom have joined UMass Chan as faculty in the neurology department, celebrated five post-doctoral fellows, and influenced undergraduate and post-BAC future researchers by gaining experience in her lab. Her research initiatives continue to gain notoriety from her peer review community, recognized by the grant awards received to support her research. Dr. Bosco’s partnership with The Angel Fund continues to flourish due to her dedication to ALS research and her mission to find a cure for incurable diseases, which drives her research interests forward.
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