Prof. Ruben Cauchi is an Associate Professor of Neurogenetics within the Dept. of Physiology & Biochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine & Surgery and Principal Investigator (P.I.) at the Centre for Molecular Medicine & Biobanking. Prof. Cauchi obtained his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford (UK) working on genetic animal models of motor neuron disease and went on to do postdoctoral research at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, University of Cambridge (UK), studying RNA processing. Prof. Cauchi heads the ALS/MND Lab at the University of Malta and leads Malta’s National ALS/MND Registry & BioBank, aiming at understanding the cause of motor neuron disease (MND) including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and identify innovative treatments. Making use of both pre-clinical and clinical approaches, Prof. Cauchi’s lab was key to several scientific breakthroughs published in high-impact journals. A well-published academic with more than 17 years’ experience in research, Prof. Cauchi is considered as an eminent expert on motor neuron diseases including ALS. In this regard, he serves as an editorial board member of Nature Scientific Reports, PLoS ONE, BMC Neuroscience and PeerJ, and acts as an ad hoc reviewer for top-tier journals, including the Springer Nature and PLoS family, as well as funding bodies including Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (UK), Medical Research Council (UK), Medical Research Foundation (UK), Association Française contre les Myopathies (AFM)-Telethon (France), Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France) and Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Europe. Prof. Cauchi served as the Editor of an academic book focused on the use of pre-clinical approaches to studying motor neuron disease, featuring contributions penned by established leaders in the field. Prof. Cauchi is presently the Malta representative of the E.U. Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action focusing on the clinical application of antisense-mediated exon skipping in neuromuscular disease. Recently, he leads the MCST COVID-19 R&I Project ACE which aims at developing an innovative therapeutic approach against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
