Robert J. Vassar PhD

Robert Vassar, Ph.D., is Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology from the University of Chicago in 1992 working in the lab of Dr. Elaine Fuchs where he modeled human epidermal diseases in transgenic mice using reverse genetic approaches. He did his post-doctoral research from 1992 to 1996 in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Axel at Columbia University, where he elucidated the organization of odorant receptors in the olfactory system, thus determining the olfactory topographic map in the brain that permits odor identification. Having a personal interest in Alzheimer’s disease (his mother died of the disorder),

Dr. Vassar joined the biotechnology company Amgen in 1996 as a Research Scientist in the Neuroscience Department, where he co-discovered the beta-secretase enzyme, BACE1, a prime Alzheimer’s disease drug target for which inhibitors are currently being tested in clinical trials. After leaving Amgen in 2001, Dr. Vassar joined the faculty of the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, where he continues to investigate the normal and pathological roles of BACE1 and mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis.