Domenico Pratico MD

Dr. Pratico is the Professor and Director of the Alzheimer’s Center at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. He is an international expert on Alzheimer’s Disease, dementia, and neurodegenerative aging. He received his MD from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. He is also a fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

He has a broad and solid background in basic and clinical neuroscience with specific training in molecular and cellular neurobiology. As a Professor of Neural Sciences, he has dedicated his academic career to the study of neurodegeneration. As an independent PI with over 20 years of experience, he has published more than 280 peer-reviewed papers.

His main research area has been the neurobiology of small molecules, enzymes, and pathways as modulators of and contributors to cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related tauopathies (i.e., Pick’s a disease, Progressive supranuclear palsy) and Down syndrome.

Areas of emphasis of his research program are oxidative stress and neuroinflammation, lifestyle, environmental stressors, proteostasis, and endosomal protein sorting and trafficking. He is interested in understanding how each of these different players regulates APP processing, Aβ metabolism, synaptic/neurotoxicity of Aβ, tau metabolism, neurofibrillary tangles formation and how they are linked to synaptic dysfunction and pathology, behavioral impairments and ultimately neurodegeneration.