Here we present a new model of tauopathy in the experimentally facile model organism Drosophila based on precise gene editing of the endogenous tau gene to introduce a mutation orthologous to human proline 301 to leucine (P301L), the most common TAU mutation in frontotemporal dementia patients (Poorkaj et al. 2001). This evidence concerns the gene MAPT and frontotemporal dementia.