Peter St George-Hyslop

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Peter Henry St George-Hyslop, OC, FRS, FRSC, FRCPC, (born July 10, 1953) is a British and Canadian medical scientist, neurologist and molecular geneticist who is known for his research into neurodegenerative diseases. St George-Hyslop is one of the most cited authors in the field of Alzheimer's disease research. [1] He has identified a number of key genes that are responsible for nerve cell degeneration and early-onset forms of Alzheimer's disease. These include the discovery of the presenilins (PSEN1 and PSEN2) [2] , Nicastrin [3] , TREM2 [4] , Apolipoprotein E [5] and SORL1 [6] genes. Presenilin mutations are the most common cause of familial Alzheimer's disease. [7] St George-Hyslop also co-led the discovery of the gene for the amyloid precursor protein. [8]

St George-Hyslop's father, Noel St George Hyslop was a renowned scientist who worked on Foot and Mouth Disease virus.

Since 2007 St George-Hyslop has headed an Alzheimer's disease research program as Professor of Experimental Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. [9] [10]

Educated at Wellington School, Wellington, Somerset, UK, St George-Hyslop completed his medical training in Canada, graduating with the MD degree in 1976, and then pursuing post-doctoral research in internal medicine and neurology at the University of Toronto and Harvard Medical School. He served his first appointment at Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital, where he taught molecular genetics and neurology from 1987 to 1991. He was appointed to the University of Toronto in 1991, and since 2003 has held the university's highest rank of University Professor. From 1995 to 2018, St George-Hyslop served as the director of the Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. [11] [12] In 2007 St George-Hyslop was appointed Professor of Experimental Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge.

He was awarded the Metlife Foundation Award for Medical Research in Alzheimer's Disease in 1987, [13] the Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Scholar Award in 1997 and 2002, the Gold Medal in Medicine from the Royal College of Physicians of Canada in 1994, the Michael Smith Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in 1997 and the Dan David Prize in 2014. [14] He is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, a fellow of the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Canada, and a Foreign Member to the Institute of Medicine of the United States National Academies. He was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada in 2018. [15]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gamma secretase</span> Type of protein

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presenilin</span>

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Carlos Cruchaga is a human genomicist with expertise in multi-omics, informatics, and neurodegeneration, with a focus on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease. He is a Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Genetics and Washington University School of Medicine. He is founding director of the Neurogenomics and Informatic (NGI) center at Washington University School of Medicine.

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Martin Neil Rossor, is a British clinical neurologist with a specialty interest in degenerative dementias and familial disease.

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Gerard David Schellenberg is an academic neuropathologist who specializes in the research of Alzheimer's disease. He is the director of Penn Neurodegeneration Genomics Center as well as a professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a leading contributor to Alzheimer's disease research.

James Affram Adjaye is a Ghanaian British Stem cell scientist. He is the Director of the Institute for Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine at the Heinrich Heine University's faculty of medicine. He also led the Molecular Embryology and Aging Group of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics situated in Berlin, Germany.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the Hispanic/Latino population is becoming a topic of interest in AD research as Hispanics and Latinos are disproportionately affected by Alzheimer's Disease and underrepresented in clinical research. AD is a neurodegenerative disease, characterized by the presence of amyloid-beta plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, that causes memory loss and cognitive decline in its patients. However, pathology and symptoms have been shown to manifest differently in Hispanic/Latinos, as different neuroinflammatory markers are expressed and cognitive decline is more pronounced. Additionally, there is a large genetic component of AD, with mutations in the amyloid precursor protein (APP), Apolipoprotein E APOE), presenilin 1 (PSEN1), bridging Integrator 1 (BIN1), SORL1, and Clusterin (CLU) genes increasing one's risk to develop the condition. However, research has shown these high-risk genes have a different effect on Hispanics and Latinos then they do in other racial and ethnic groups. Additionally, this population experiences higher rates of comorbidities, that increase their risk of developing AD. Hispanics and Latinos also face socioeconomic and cultural factors, such as low income and a language barrier, that affect their ability to engage in clinical trials and receive proper care.

References

  1. ↑ "Science.ca : Peter Henry St. George-Hyslop".
  2. ↑ "Cloning of a novel gene bearing missense mutations in early onset familial Alzheimer Disease". Nature.
  3. ↑ "Nicastrin modulates presenilin-mediated Notch/Gip1 signal transduction and bAPP processing". Nature.
  4. ↑ "TREM2 variants in Alzheimer's disease". New England Journal of Medicine. PMC   3631573 .
  5. ↑ "Association of Apoliprotein E allele e4 with the late-onset familial and sporadic Alzheimer Disease". Neurology.
  6. ↑ "The neuronal sortilin-related receptor SORL1 is genetically associated with Alzheimer's Disease". Nature Genetics. PMC   2657343 .
  7. ↑ "Presenilin mutations and their impact on neuronal differentiation in Alzheimer's disease". Neural Regeneration Research. PMID   34100423.
  8. ↑ "A Hundred Years of Alzheimer's Disease Research". Neuron. PMID   17015223.
  9. ↑ "Horizons magazine". 19 February 2013.
  10. ↑ "Prof Peter St George-Hyslop". www.cimr.cam.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2007-11-09.
  11. ↑ "About the Centre | Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases".
  12. ↑ "Director's Message | Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases". tanz.med.utoronto.ca.
  13. ↑ "MetLife Foundation Awards for Medical Research in Alzheimer's Disease" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 October 2018.
  14. ↑ "Dan David Foundation announces winners of prize". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. 11 February 2014. Retrieved 2020-11-02.
  15. ↑ "Order of Canada Appointments". 29 June 2018. Archived from the original on 29 September 2020. Retrieved 18 February 2019.

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