Celebrating Dr. Firyal Ramzan at the 2026 Uplifting Athletes Young Investigator Draft

Last weekend, Dr. Zollie Yavarow from Cure VCP Disease traveled to Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA for a one-of-a-kind event. We watched one of our own researchers, Dr. Firyal Ramzan from the University of Waterloo, get selected during the 2026 Uplifting Athletes Young Investigator Draft.

Dale Martin, PhD, Firyal Ramzan, PhD, and Zollie Yavarow, PhD, MA

A Partnership That Moves Science Forward

Dr. Ramzan, who works in Dr. Dale Martin's laboratory, was selected to receive $20,000 in funding—co-funded by Uplifting Athletes and Cure VCP Disease—to advance her groundbreaking work on antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) for VCP disease. This funding is a mutually beneficial partnership, where Dr. Ramzan gets critical resources to advance her career and her research, and we know this project aimed to develop treatments for VCP-MSP will be prioritized and move forward.

The Science: A Smarter Approach to Targeting VCP Mutations

What makes Dr. Ramzan's work so exciting? She's developing an ASO that targets a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), not at the mutation site itself, but at another location on the mutant allele. This innovative approach means her therapy could potentially target multiple VCP mutations, rather than being limited to a single mutation. By identifying SNPs that are common across different VCP mutations, her ASO could help more patients with diverse genetic variants.

The $20,000 award will specifically fund sequencing of patient alleles, which is a critical step in identifying those key SNPs that will make this approach possible. Beyond the funding, this partnership connects Dr. Ramzan with both Uplifting Athletes and the broader rare disease community, amplifying the impact of her work.

Zollie Yavarow, PhD, MA, Firyal Ramzan, Phd, Jay , Donna Huryn, PhD, Dale Martin, PhD

Why In-Person Matters

At brunch before the big event, Dr. Martin pulled out 3D-printed VCP molecules to illustrate his points. A whole bunch of nerds sharing science together, which is exactly what collaboration should look like. Later, while walking to see the Liberty Bell, we dove into the age-old question of whether VCP should be activated or inhibited. The conversation landed on something the community has been working on since our 2024 conference, namely moving beyond the black-and-white framing of activation and inhibition to focus on mislocalization and what VCP is interacting with when it's mutated. It's one of the key questions we're excited to explore at the 2026 scientific conference.