John Hardy FRS | |
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Born | John Anthony Hardy 9 November 1954[ citation needed ] |
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Thesis | The release of amino acids and phenylethylamine from mammalian synaptosomes (1981) |
Website | ucl |
Sir John Anthony Hardy FRS [1] (born 9 November 1954)[ citation needed ] is a human geneticist and molecular biologist at the Reta Lila Weston Institute of Neurological Studies at University College London with research interests in neurological diseases. [3] [4] [5] [6]
Hardy attended St Ambrose College in the late 1960s, where his interest in biochemistry was encouraged by his Biology teacher, Mrs Cox. [7] He received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Leeds in 1976 [8] and his PhD from Imperial College London in 1981 [8] for research on dopamine and amino acid neuropharmacology.
Following his PhD, Hardy did postdoctoral research at the MRC Neuropathogenesis Unit in Newcastle upon Tyne, England and then further postdoctoral work at the Swedish Brain Bank in Umeå, Sweden where he started to work on Alzheimer's disease. [8]
He became Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at St. Mary's Hospital, Imperial College London in 1985 and initiated genetic studies of Alzheimer's disease there. [9] He became Associate Professor in 1989 and then took the Pfeiffer Endowed Chair of Alzheimer's Research at the University of South Florida, in Tampa in 1992. In 1996 he moved to Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, as Consultant and Professor of Neuroscience.
He became Chair of Neuroscience in 2000 and moved to National Institute on Aging, Bethesda, Maryland, as Chief of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics in 2001. In 2007 he took up the Chair of Molecular Biology of Neurological Disease at the Reta Lila Weston Institute of Neurological Studies, University College London.
On 29 November 2015, he was awarded the Breakthrough Prize.
In 2018, Hardy, along with Christian Haass, Bart De Strooper and Michel Goedert, received the Brain Prize for "groundbreaking research on the genetic and molecular basis of Alzheimer's disease." [10]
Among other awards and honours, Hardy has won the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for dissecting the causes of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and frontotemporal dementia; the MetLife prize for research into Alzheimer's disease, and the Potamkin Prize for his work in describing the first genetic mutations in the amyloid gene in Alzheimer's disease, in 1991. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2009. [1] He was knighted in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to "human health in improving our understanding of dementia and neurodegenerative diseases". [11]
Christine Van Broeckhoven is a Belgian molecular biologist and professor in Molecular genetics at the University of Antwerp. She is also leading the VIB Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Antwerp of the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB). Christine Van Broeckhoven does research on Alzheimer dementia, bipolar mental disorders and other neurological diseases. Since 1983 she has had her own laboratory for molecular genetics at the University of Antwerp, and since 2005 is focussing her research on neurodegenerative brain diseases. She is an associate editor of the scientific journal Genes, Brain and Behavior.
The Potamkin Prize for Research in Pick's, Alzheimer's, and Related Diseases was established in 1988 and is sponsored by the American Academy of Neurology. The prize is funded through the philanthropy of the Potamkin Foundation. The prize is awarded for achievements on emerging areas of research in Pick's disease, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.
Bart De Strooper is a Belgian molecular biologist and professor at Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie and KU Leuven and the UK Dementia Research Institute and University College London, UK. De Strooper's research seeks to translate genetic data into the identification and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and treatments. interest are the secretases, proteases which cleave the amyloid precursor protein (APP), resulting in amyloid peptides.
Michael Mullan is an English-American researcher in Alzheimer's disease and related neurodegenerative disorders. Mullan was a co-discoverer of genetic causes of Alzheimer's disease. Subsequently, he was a co-inventor on the original patents that covered three mutations in the amyloid precursor protein (APP) gene, a gene which is linked to familial Alzheimer's disease. He also co-authored articles in Nature and Nature Genetics, describing these three genetic errors; he was the senior author on two of those articles. Dr. Mullan co-discovered a specific genetic mutation, which became known as "the Swedish Mutation," because it was originally identified in DNA samples from two Swedish families whose members often developed early-onset Alzheimer's disease. These human genetic mutations were integrated into mouse DNA to create strains of mice that are being used worldwide to develop new drug treatments for Alzheimer's disease.
Gillian Patricia Bates FMedSci FRS is a British biologist. She is distinguished for her research into the molecular basis of Huntington's disease and in 1998 was awarded the GlaxoSmithKline Prize as a co-discoverer of the cause of this disease. As of 2016, she is Professor of Neurogenetics at UCL Institute of Neurology and the co-director of UCL Huntington's Disease Centre.
John Quinn Trojanowski was an American academic research neuroscientist specializing in neurodegeneration. He and his partner, Virginia Man-Yee Lee, MBA, Ph.D., are noted for identifying the roles of three proteins in neurodegenerative diseases: tau in Alzheimer's disease, alpha-synuclein in Parkinson's disease, and TDP-43 in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal degeneration.
Samuel E. Gandy, is a neurologist, cell biologist, Alzheimer's disease (AD) researcher and expert in the metabolism of the sticky substance called amyloid that clogs the brain in patients with Alzheimer's. His team discovered the first drugs that could lower the formation of amyloid.
The UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology is an institute within the Faculty of Brain Sciences of University College London (UCL) and is located in London, United Kingdom. Together with the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, an adjacent facility with which it cooperates closely, the institute forms a major centre for teaching, training and research in neurology and allied clinical and basic neurosciences.
Andrew B. Singleton is a British neurogeneticist currently working in the USA. He was born in Guernsey, the Channel Islands in 1972, where he lived until he was 18 years old. His secondary education was conducted at the Guernsey Grammar School. He earned a first class degree in Applied Physiology from Sunderland University and his PhD in neuroscience from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne where he studied the genetics of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Neurochemical Pathology Unit. He moved to the United States in 1999, where he began working at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida studying the genetic basis of Parkinson's disease, ataxia, and dystonia. He moved to the National Institutes of Health in 2001 to head the newly formed Molecular Genetics unit within the Laboratory of Neurogenetics. In 2006 he took over as Chief of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and became an NIH Distinguished Investigator in the intramural program at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) in 2017. In 2020 he stepped down as the Chief of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and became the Acting Director of the newly formed Center for Alzheimer's and Related Dementias at the NIA. In 2021 he became the Director of CARD.
Michel Goedert FRS, FMedSci is a Luxembourgish-British neuroscientist and former Head of Neurobiology, at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.
Maria Grazia Spillantini, is Professor of Molecular Neurology in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge. She is most noted for identifying the protein alpha-synuclein as the major component of Lewy bodies, the characteristic protein deposit found in the brain in Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. She has also identified mutations in the MAPT gene as a heritable cause for frontotemporal dementia.
Karen Elizabeth Keitley Duff is a British scientist known for her work on Alzheimer's disease. Her most notable work focused on the development and characterization of mouse models of Alzheimer's disease amyloid deposition. She became Centre Director of the UK Dementia Research Institute's hub at University College London in spring 2020.
David Chaim Rubinsztein FRS FMedSci is the Deputy Director of the Cambridge Institute of Medical Research (CIMR), Professor of Molecular Neurogenetics at the University of Cambridge and a UK Dementia Research Institute Professor.
Virginia Man-Yee Lee is a Chinese-born American biochemist and neuroscientist who specializes in the research of Alzheimer's disease. She is the current John H. Ware 3rd Endowed Professor in Alzheimer's Research at the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and the director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research and co-director of the Marian S. Ware Alzheimer Drug Discovery Program at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. She received the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
The neuroscience of aging is the study of the changes in the nervous system that occur with ageing. Aging is associated with many changes in the central nervous system, such as mild atrophy of the cortex that is considered non-pathological. Aging is also associated with many neurological and neurodegenerative disease such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, dementia, mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson's disease, and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.
Alison Mary Goate is a professor of neuroscience and Director of the Loeb Center for Alzheimer's Disease at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City. She was previously professor of genetics in psychiatry, professor of genetics, and professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine.
Mathias Jucker is a Swiss neuroscientist, Professor, and a Director at the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research of the University of Tübingen. He is also a group leader at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Tübingen. Jucker is known for his research on the basic biologic mechanisms underlying brain aging and Alzheimer's disease.
Martin Neil Rossor, is a British clinical neurologist with a specialty interest in degenerative dementias and familial disease.
Dennis J. Selkoe is an American physician (neurologist) known for his research into the molecular basis of Alzheimer's disease. In 1985 he became Co-Director of the Center for Neurological Diseases and from 1990, Vincent and Stella Coates Professor of Neurological Diseases at Harvard Medical School. He is also a Fellow of the AAAS and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Carol Joyce Jennings is a British campaigner and advocate for research into Alzheimer's Disease. As of 2023 she serves as an honorary Vice-President of the Alzheimer's Society. Through her activism in the 1980s, Jennings brought her family to the attention of researchers studying the disease, which subsequently led to the discovery of the London Mutation. This mutation, found on the Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) gene located on chromosome 21, marked a significant breakthrough in understanding the genetic basis of Alzheimer's Disease and provided evidence for the development of the 'amyloid hypothesis', which attempts to explain the underlying causes of Alzheimer's Disease.