John Q. Trojanowski MD, PhD

Dr. Trojanowski obtained his MD/PhD in 1976 from Tufts University, did a medicine internship at Mt. Auburn Hospital, trained in pathology and neuropathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine where he joined the faculty in 1981. He is Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Director of the NIA Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Director of the NINDS Morris K. Udall Parkinson’s Disease Center, Co-Director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, Director of the Institute on Aging and Co-director of the Marian S. Ware Alzheimer Program. His research focuses on Alzheimer’s (AD) and Parkinson’s (PD) disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal degeneration (FTD) and related disorders which has led to the discovery that aggregation of tau, alpha-synuclein and TDP-43 proteins underlies AD, PD, FTLD, ALS and related disorders. This opened up new avenues for treatments for these disorders. Dr. Trojanowski has received the Metropolitan Life Foundation Award (1996), the Potamkin Prize (1998), a Pioneer Award from the Alzheimer’s Association (1998), the 2004 Irving Wright Award of the American Federation for Aging Research, the 2005 Rous-Whipple Award of the American Society for Investigative Pathology, the 24th Annual Robert J. and Claire Pasarow Foundation Award in Neuropsychiatry Research (2012), the 2012 John Scott Award, the 2014 J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine, Molecular Basis of Neurological Disorders from the Robarts Institute, London, Ontario, Canada and he was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2002. He led an effort to prepare a 2009 PBS film entitled “Alzheimer’s Disease-Facing the Facts” that won a 2008 CINE “Golden Eagle Award” and a 2009 Emmy Award for short documentary films. Dr. Trojanowski is among the top 10 most highly cited AD researchers from 1997 to 2007 with an h-index of 133.