Speaker
Gregory Petsko
PROFESSOR OF NEUROLOGY, ANN ROMNEY CENTER FOR NEUROLOGIC DISEASES HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL AND BRIGHAM & WOMEN’S HOSPITAL
Gregory A. Petsko, D. Phil. is Professor of Neurology at the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases in the Department of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston.
From 2012-2018 he was Arthur J. Mahon Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, where he was also Director of the Helen and Robert Appel Alzheimer’s Disease Research Institute.
He received his BA from Princeton University, summa cum laude, in 1970, and his D. Phil. from Oxford University (which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar) in Molecular Biophysics in 1973. He was Professor of Chemistry at MIT from 1978 until 1990, when he moved to Brandeis University as Gyula and Katica Tauber Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry, and became Director of the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center, and later Chair of the Department of Biochemistry. He moved to Weill Cornell Medical College in April 2012 and to Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston in 2019.
He is married to Dr. Laurie Glimcher, the President and CEO of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His awards include the Siddhu Award and the Martin J. Buerger Award, both from the American Crystallographic Association (35 years apart), the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry of the American Chemical Society (for development of methods to visualize reaction intermediates in three dimensions at atomic resolution), the Lynen Medal for pioneering contributions to the study of protein dynamics, the McKnight Endowment for Neuroscience Brain Disorders Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 1991 the Max Planck Prize, shared with Professor Roger Goody of Heidelberg for their joint work on the molecular origins of Ras-dependent human cancers. He has co-founded several public and private biotechnology companies, most recently Retromer Therapeutics and Aevum Therapeutics. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Neurological Association. He has an honorary Doctor of Laws from Dalhousie University. He is Past-President both of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and past Chair of the Medical Sciences Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
His research interests currently focus on the development of new treatments for age-related neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS (Lou Gehrig’s), Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases; much of this is done in collaboration with his friend Dr. Scott Small of Columbia Univresity, who discovered the central role of endosomal protein trafficking in many neurolgical disorders, and with long-time collaborator Prof. Dagmar Ringe of Brandeis University. He states that his greatest accomplishments are the more than 200 young scientists he has helped to train, a list that includes five Howard Hughes Investigators, two members of the National Academy of Sciences, four high-school science teachers, several teachers at small liberal arts colleges, and the second woman ever to head a Max-Planck Institute. His public lectures on the aging of the population and its implications for human health have attracted a wide audience in person and on the Internet (one of his TED talks, for example, has been viewed more than a million times). For many years he wrote a widely-read and much reprinted column on science and society, the first ten years of which are available in book form. He admits, however, that the columns guest-written by his two dogs, Mink and Clifford, are much more popular than those he writes himself.
From 2012-2018 he was Arthur J. Mahon Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, where he was also Director of the Helen and Robert Appel Alzheimer’s Disease Research Institute.
He received his BA from Princeton University, summa cum laude, in 1970, and his D. Phil. from Oxford University (which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar) in Molecular Biophysics in 1973. He was Professor of Chemistry at MIT from 1978 until 1990, when he moved to Brandeis University as Gyula and Katica Tauber Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry, and became Director of the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center, and later Chair of the Department of Biochemistry. He moved to Weill Cornell Medical College in April 2012 and to Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston in 2019.
He is married to Dr. Laurie Glimcher, the President and CEO of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His awards include the Siddhu Award and the Martin J. Buerger Award, both from the American Crystallographic Association (35 years apart), the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry of the American Chemical Society (for development of methods to visualize reaction intermediates in three dimensions at atomic resolution), the Lynen Medal for pioneering contributions to the study of protein dynamics, the McKnight Endowment for Neuroscience Brain Disorders Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 1991 the Max Planck Prize, shared with Professor Roger Goody of Heidelberg for their joint work on the molecular origins of Ras-dependent human cancers. He has co-founded several public and private biotechnology companies, most recently Retromer Therapeutics and Aevum Therapeutics. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Neurological Association. He has an honorary Doctor of Laws from Dalhousie University. He is Past-President both of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and past Chair of the Medical Sciences Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
His research interests currently focus on the development of new treatments for age-related neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS (Lou Gehrig’s), Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases; much of this is done in collaboration with his friend Dr. Scott Small of Columbia Univresity, who discovered the central role of endosomal protein trafficking in many neurolgical disorders, and with long-time collaborator Prof. Dagmar Ringe of Brandeis University. He states that his greatest accomplishments are the more than 200 young scientists he has helped to train, a list that includes five Howard Hughes Investigators, two members of the National Academy of Sciences, four high-school science teachers, several teachers at small liberal arts colleges, and the second woman ever to head a Max-Planck Institute. His public lectures on the aging of the population and its implications for human health have attracted a wide audience in person and on the Internet (one of his TED talks, for example, has been viewed more than a million times). For many years he wrote a widely-read and much reprinted column on science and society, the first ten years of which are available in book form. He admits, however, that the columns guest-written by his two dogs, Mink and Clifford, are much more popular than those he writes himself.
Speaking In
2:15 PM - 3:15 PM
Monday, June 5
