Nikolaos K. Robakis PhD

Nikolaos K. Robakis is A.P. Slaner Professor for Alzheimer’s disease Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, the first researcher named to this endowed chair. He is the Director of the Robakis Laboratory at Mount Sinai.

Dr. Robakis earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from New York University and has been working on the molecular biology and genetics of neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), prion disorders, and frontotemporal dementia for more than 30 years. His laboratory has been awarded competitive research grants totaling millions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States, pharmaceutical companies, and non-profit organizations.

In 1987, Dr. Robakis discovered the β-amyloid precursor protein (APP) gene, mutation of which plays a role in the breakdown of APP, a process that produces harmful forms of amyloid plaques, which are one of the hallmarks of AD. This breakthrough was widely reported in the popular press in the United States and abroad and was commented upon in editorials of scientific journals. He is a recipient of the MERIT Award of the National Institutes of Health, the McKnight Neuroscience Development Award for Alzheimer’s disease, and the Zenith Award of the Alzheimer’s Association, USA.

He has been invited to lecture at many academic institutions and as the main speaker at numerous national and international meetings and has been on the editorial board of professional journals, including the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Current Alzheimer Research, Neurodegenerative Diseases, Cell Health and Cytoskeleton, and Frontiers in Alzheimer’s disease. He also has served on the scientific advisory board of private organizations that fund AD and aging research.

Dr. Robakis has been a member of numerous study sections and review panels at the NIH and was a regular member of the Cellular and Molecular Biology of Neurodegeneration (CMND) study section at NIH. He has served on the review board of NIH-funded program projects and Alzheimer’s disease Research Centers (ADRCs). He is proud to have trained more than 40 post-doctoral fellows and doctoral students in the molecular and cell biology of neurodegeneration and AD. Many trainees of his laboratory are currently faculty members in universities and other academic institutions or group leaders in pharmaceutical companies in the United States, Japan, and Europe.