Valerie Sim

Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry - Medicine Dept
Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry - Medicine Dept Neurology

Contact

Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry - Medicine Dept
Email
vsim@ualberta.ca

Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry - Medicine Dept Neurology
Email
valerie.sim@ualberta.ca
Phone
(780) 248-1726
Address
204 Brain And Aging Research Building
8710 - 112 St NW
Edmonton AB
T6G 2M8

Overview

About

I am a (neurologist) with an interest in rapidly progressive dementias caused by proteins that misfold.


I lead a research team looking into the pathogenesis of these diseases at the level of protein structure and the brain. We primarily study prion diseases, which include bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease) in cattle, chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer, elk and moose, disease (CJD) in humans, and scrapie in sheep. These diseases result when a normal protein, the prion protein (PrP), misfolds into a higher beta sheet state and aggregates in the brain. A rapid neurodegeneration follows, which, in people, usually includes dementia, ataxia, visual hallucinations and myoclonus, ending with akinetic mutism. The diseases are always fatal and there are no treatments.


Interested in learning more? Check out my lab .


Featured Publications

Nemani SK, Xiao X, Cali I, Cracco L, Puoti G, Nigro M, Lavrich J, Bharara Singh A, Appleby BS, Sim VL, Notari S, Surewicz WK, Gambetti P

Acta Neuropathologica Communications. 2025 August; 13 (1):172 10.1186/s40478-025-02079-9


Hailey Pineau, Valerie L. Sim

Scientific Reports. 2025 February; 10.1038/s41598-025-88861-0


Steven D Willows, Valentyna Semenchenko, Grant Norman, Michael T Woodside, Valerie L Sim, Marianna Kulka

The Journal of Immunology. 2023 May; 10.4049/jimmunol.2200726


Leonardo M. Cortez, Anneliese J. Morrison, Craig R. Garen, Sawyer Patterson, Toshi Uyesugi, Rafayel Petrosyan, Rohith Vedhthaanth Sekar, Michael J. Harms, Michael T. Woodside, Valerie L. Sim

Protein Science. 2022 December; 10.1002/pro.4477


Leonardo M. Cortez, Satish K. Nemani, Camilo Duque Velásquez, Aishwarya Sriraman, YongLiang Wang, Holger Wille, Debbie McKenzie, Valerie L. Sim

PLOS Pathogens. 2021 June; 10.1371/journal.ppat.1009703


Jitendra Kumar, Risa Namsechi, Valerie L. Sim

PLOS ONE. 2015 June; 10.1371/journal.pone.0129087


Journal of Virology. 2015 January; 10.1128/JVI.01165-15


Valerie L. Sim, Byron Caughey

Neurobiology of Aging. 2009 January; 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2008.02.016


Jay R. Silveira, Gregory J. Raymond, Andrew G. Hughson, Richard E. Race, Valerie L. Sim, Stanley F. Hayes, Byron Caughey

Nature. 2005 September; 10.1038/nature03989


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