Video - featured Scientists

Merit Cudkowicz, MD, MSc, is an Associate in Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Cudkowicz is trained in Neurology and Experimental Therapeutics with a focus in neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Cudkowicz is Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital ALS clinic and Neurology Clinical Trial Unit. Dr. Cudkowicz is currently leading a multi-center clinical trial of coenzyme Q10 in Huntington’s Disease, a clinical trial of Ceftriaxone in ALS and a clinical trial of Lithium in ALS. She is also the co-principal investigator of two clinical trials in familial ALS caused by mutations in superoxide dismutase. Dr. Cudkowicz serves on the boards of scientific advisors for the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the ALS Association. She is the 2009 co-recipient of the Sheila Essay Award for ALS research. Additionally, she is the co-founder and Co-Chair of the Northeast ALS Consortium (NEALS), a multi-center collaborative group formed to design and implement clinical trials in ALS.

Bradley T. Hyman, MD, PhD, is the John B. Penney, Jr. Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital where he has a clinical practice in the Memory and Disorder Unit and is the Director of the Massachusetts Alzheimer Disease Research Center. His clinical career is devoted towards the care of patients with dementia. His research laboratory is pursuing research in Alzheimer’s disease, and other neurodegenerative diseases, with a goal of understanding the neuropathophysiologic and genetic factors that underlie dementia. Dr. Hyman’s laboratory is developing methods to examine clinical-pathological correlates and biomarkers in AD, as well as animal and cell models to explore the natural history of the diseases. A recent focus has been the use of advanced microscopy methods – including multiphoton microscopy for in vivo imaging of plaques, tangles, and synuclein aggregates, as well as FRET methods to detect protein-protein interactions and protein conformation. Dr. Hyman has received the Potamkin Award, a Metropolitan Life Award, a Brookdale Foundation fellowship, an Alzheimer Association Faculty Scholar Award, an Alzheimer Association Pioneer Award, and a National Institute on Aging Merit Award.

Ole Isacson, MD, is Professor of Neurology (Neuroscience) at Harvard Medical School. He is the Director of the Center for Neuroregeneration Research/Neuroregeneration Laboratories at McLean Hospital, and an NIH Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence grant awardee. Dr. Isacson is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center and Principal Faculty of Harvard Stem Cell Institute. Over the last two decades his original laboratory has grown to an internationally recognized academic research center for Parkinson's disease and related disorders, funded by the NIH, DOD and private foundations. Dr. Isacson's scientific models and studies of conceptually new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases have resulted in many new findings and clinical trials for Parkinson's and Huntington's disease. He is Receiving Editor of the European Journal of Neuroscience and on the board of numerous scientific journals. Dr. Isacson is a founding member and past President of the American Society for Neural Transplantation and Repair, and is the current President of the international Cell Transplant Society, CTS (branch of The Transplantation Society, TTS). He serves as a scientific reviewer and advisor to the NIH, DOD and many Parkinson community groups. Dr. Isacson has received several international prizes, research awards and lectureships. He is author or co-author of over 200 original scientific research publications in neuroscience and neurology, and 3 books in his field.

Adrian J. Ivinson, PhD, is the director of the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center since its founding in 2001. Dr. Ivinson was previously special advisor to the Provost of Harvard University. Prior to his positions at Harvard University, Dr. Ivinson held a number of leadership roles at the prestigious Nature Publishing Group, including Editor-in-Chief of the journal Nature Medicine and Publisher. Dr. Ivinson is a geneticist by training and has devoted his career to translating research into effective medical interventions.

Joseph B. Martin, MD, PhD, co-founder and co-chair of the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center, is the Edward R. and Anne G. Lefler Professor of Neurobiology and the former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Harvard Medical School (1997-2007). Dr. Martin began his career in academic medicine at McGill University, where he became chair of the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery in 1977. In 1978, he joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School as the Bullard Professor of Neurology and chief of the Neurology Service at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1984, he was appointed the Julieanne Dorn Professor of Neurology at Harvard. Dr. Martin served as dean of the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) from 1989 to 1993, and was elected Chancellor of UCSF for four years until returning to Harvard.

Dennis J. Selkoe, MD, co-founder and co-chair of the Havard NeuroDiscovery Center, is the Vincent and Stella Coates Professor of Neurologic Diseases at Harvard Medical School and co-director of Center for Neurologic Diseases, Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Selkoe has devoted his career to medical research, specifically related to molecular approaches to the study of neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Selkoe’s contributions continue to break new ground toward the understanding of Alzheimer’s disease. For example, Dr. Selkoe and his collaborators conducted extensive research on the hallmark legion of Alzheimer’s disease, the amyloid plaque, as well as the amyloid ß-protein. Dr. Selkoe was the principal founding scientist of Athena Neurosciences, now Elan Pharmaceuticals.

Howard L. Weiner, MD, is the Robert L. Kroc Professor of Neurology at the Harvard Medical School and Co-Director of the Center for Neurologic Diseases at the Brigham & Women's Hospital. Dr. Weiner established the Partners Multiple Sclerosis Center at Brigham & Women's Hospital in 2000 which combines clinical evaluation, MRI imaging and immune monitoring and is the first integrated MS center that brings these disciplines to the individual care of the MS patient. Dr. Weiner has pioneered the use of immunotherapy and the drug cyclophosphamide for the treatment of multiple sclerosis and has investigated immune abnormalities in the disease including the role of the innate immune system and regulatory T cells. He has also pioneered the use of the mucosal immune system for the treatment of autoimmune and other diseases. Based on his work vaccines are being tested in multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and most recently in Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Weiner is the author of "Curing MS: How Science is Solving the Mystery of Multiple Sclerosis" that chronicles the history of MS, his 30+ years in the research and clinical treatment of MS, and details his "21 point hypothesis" on the etiology and treatment of multiple sclerosis. Dr. Weiner is the 2007 recipient of the John Dystel Prize for Multiple Sclerosis Research awarded by the American Academy of Neurology and in 2008 received the Betty and David Koetser Memorial Prize as awarded by the Betty and David Koetser Foundation for Brain Research.

Anne B. Young, MD, PhD, is an expert in Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases. She and her late husband (John B. Penney, Jr.) provided the most widely cited model of basal ganglia function (the basal ganglia are the brain regions affected by Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases). The model has provided the springboard for testing novel interventions in Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases and related disorders. Most recently, Dr. Young has spearheaded comprehensive drug discovery efforts at the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease, which has been successful in identifying drug targets for Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Young was recruited to MGH as its first female chief at the hospital and the only female chief of neurology at an academic hospital in the country. Dr. Young holds membership in the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Society.  She is also the only person (male or female) to have been president of both the international Society for Neuroscience and the American Neurological Association. Dr. Young is an established authority on the clinical diagnosis and treatment of both Parkinson’s disease and Huntington disease. She is a founding member of the Venezuela Huntington Disease Consortium, which played a key role in the discovery of the Huntington disease gene. She sees patients with Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease and other movement disorders at MGH.