Maiken Nedergaard MD, PhD, DMSc

Dr. Maiken Nedergaard is Dean’s Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, NY and at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her interests span from neuron-glia interactions to the role of astrocytes in aging, small vessel disease, stroke, and cerebral blood flow regulation. Her group described the lymphatic system, a brain equivalent of the lymphatic system within which cerebrospinal fluid diffuses rapidly and mixes with interstitial fluids, thereby clearing metabolic waste products that accumulate during neuronal activity. The glymphatic system dramatically increases its activity during sleep compared to waking brain cleaning and detoxification are thus facilitated during sleep, providing a novel and direct explanation for what we all generally consider sleep’s restorative effect. Recent work has implicated the glymphatic system in edema formation in acute stroke.

Dr. Nedergaard is an elected member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and a Fellow of AHA. In 2015 she received the Newcomb Cleveland Prize, from AAAS and the Alzheimer Prize in Denmark. In 2018, she received The Fernström Nordic Prize in Medicine and in 2020 the Thomas Willis Stroke Award and the International Prize for Translational Neuroscience from the Reemstma Foundation.