Gary J. Bassell PhD

Gary J. Bassell, Ph.D. joined the faculty at Emory University School of Medicine in 2005, where he is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Cell Biology. Prior to moving to Emory, Dr. Bassell was a member of the faculty at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in the Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology (1995-1998), and subsequently in the Department of Neuroscience and Rose Kennedy Center for Mental Retardation (1998-2005).

Gary received his Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of Massachusetts Medical School where he did thesis research in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Singer. He then went on to do postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Kenneth Kosik at the Center for Neurological Diseases of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Bassell’s laboratory at Emory has major interests to elucidate basic mechanisms of neuronal mRNA regulation and synapse development and to understand neurological disease mechanisms that result from impairments in mRNA regulation, including fragile x syndrome and spinal muscular atrophy. More recently his lab has been active in the development of therapeutic strategies for fragile x syndrome. Dr. Bassell has over fifteen years of experience as a principal investigator to direct NIH-funded studies, mentor trainees, and publish high-impact and highly cited manuscripts on various topics related to neuronal mRNA biology in health and disease. He has received several awards, including the Basal O-Connor Scholar Award from the March of Dimes Foundation (1996), the Dana Foundation Award in Brain Imaging (2004), and a Trailblazer Award from Autism Speaks Foundation (2011), and a NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award (2013). Dr. Bassell has served on numerous study sections, review panels, and advisory committees for the NIH and private research foundations. For over ten years, Dr. Bassell served as director of microscopy cores and was part of the leadership team that formed Integrated Cellular Imaging. Since 2012, Dr. Bassell has been director of the Laboratory of Translational Cell Biology (LTCB), an Emory School of Medicine-supported initiative, whose objectives are to establish Emory patient stem, cell-derived models of neurologic diseases, characterize disease mechanisms at the cellular level, and conduct high content microscopy-based drug screening.