Tagan Remembrances

Tagan’s sudden and unexpected passing affected me deeply as it did all who knew him.  I first met Tagan in 2017 when I joined Dr. Stan Prusiner’s group in the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at after retiring as Director of the McLaughlin Research Institute in Great Falls, Montana.  Dr. Prusiner asked me to serve as a mentor for his postdoctoral fellow, Tagan Griffin.  I couldn’t have been more pleased with this assignment. Tagan’s research interests overlapped with mine. Tagan’s work focused on making human neurons from pluripotent stem cells derived from normal people or from individuals suffering from neurodegenerative brain diseases caused by prions, which are self-replicating proteins. Tagan’s plan was to use the stem cell-derived human nerve cells to study and cure diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.  Tagan’s skills in isolating and genetically modifying human neurons was amazing.  His work and dedication to science was first rate.

More important than his scientific skills were his generosity, kindness and love for his family. Tagan was so proud of you, Bodhi and Sophia.  I wish you had had more time with him.  You should be as proud of him as he was of you. He was also fun and had great sense of humor.

Tagan was a joy to be around. We spent hours discussing science and bouncing ideas off one another. We would often use the whiteboard in my office to sketch out plans for experiments. This photo is of one of our last whiteboard ‘conversations’. I was so looking forward to working with Tagan on finalizing his paper “Fibril treatment changes protein interactions of tau and a-synuclein in human neurons”. Tagan was kind and helpful to all.  I miss him.

George Carlson

Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases

University of California San Francisco

To contribute a page to the memory book, email your words and/or photos to taganmemorybook@gmail.com