Jonathan Rosand, M.D.

Co-Director, Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health

Managing Co-Director, Mass General Neuroscience

Emeritus Medical Director, Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit

Jonathan Rosand has devoted himself to improving the lives of individuals and families affected by diseases of the brain. His commitment is grounded in early life experiences shaped by the sudden loss of his best friend to brain disease and passionate scholarship in the humanities. Since graduating from Columbia with an undergraduate degree in Greek and Latin and his medical degree, Dr. Rosand has spent his entire career at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard, where he completed residency, Chief Residency, fellowship and research training. A trailblazing leader, he has assembled teams to provide state-of-the-art care, produce world-class innovative research, and train the next generation’s best and brightest from all over the world. Key to his success are his unique combination of deep clinical and research expertise, his approach to trans-disciplinary collaboration, and a leadership style that enables those on his teams to flourish and emerge rapidly as leaders themselves. Dr. Rosand’s groups consistently recruit top talent and create opportunities for colleagues and trainees to expand the impact of their own careers.

Dr. Rosand is Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. He established Harvard’s first Division of Neurocritical Care and Emergency Neurology in 2011 and served as inaugural Chief of Neurocritical Care and Emergency Neurology at Mass General, where he is appointed to the J. P. Kistler Endowed Chair. His research group is housed within the Mass General Center for Genomic Medicine and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he is an Associate Member. Through his steady recruitment of extraordinary faculty, the Division is now the largest, most diversified team in the country and receives more federal research funding than any of its national peers. Widely acknowledged as an outstanding mentor, Dr. Rosand established and directed fellowship programs in vascular neurology and neurocritical care that continue to produce directors and faculty members a top programs at peer institutions around the world. From 2012-2017 he oversaw the joint National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke/American Neurological Association career development course for the nation’s top neuroscience clinician-scientists, and in 2017, he launched a federally funded training program in Restoration and Recovery of CNS Health and Function after Injury. That same year, Dr. Rosand was appointed Founding and Managing Co-Director of Mass General Neuroscience, a hospital-wide initiative to integrate its vast neuroscience community in order to broaden impact for patients through the development of multidisciplinary care and research teams.

The hallmark of Dr. Rosand’s scientific work, described in over 300 scientific publications, is the combination of careful clinical and imaging characterization of patients with the most rigorous approaches to genetics. This focus has been fundamental to the global scientific impact of his unique patient-oriented research group. Seminal discoveries have elucidated the biological processes involved in cerebral small vessel disease, a common condition of aging, and its most devastating manifestation, hemorrhagic stroke. His lab’s studies have improved the management of patients with hemorrhagic stroke, as well as influenced prevention strategies for patients at risk for stroke. In 2007 Dr. Rosand established the International Stroke Genetics Consortium, which has grown into the leading force in stroke genetics, with more than 90 members drawn from six continents, and is responsible for all of the enduring genetic discoveries in common forms of stroke. In 2017, he launched the Cerebrovascular Disease Knowledge Portal, a global platform for the analysis and sharing of genetic and phenotypic data.

In 2018, Dr. Rosand stepped down as Chief of Neurocritical Care to team up with colleagues Rudy Tanzi and Greg Fricchione and launch the Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health. His vision for brain health grew out of his experience with patients and families whose needs could not be met by current approaches in neurology and psychiatry. His patients and their families have shared their stories on television (Life or Death: Brain Attack, Discovery Channel; Maximizing Human Potential through Brain Health, University of California Television) and in print (Quality Care and a Good Death. Mayo Clinic Proceedings 2011). He has pioneered studies of family members of critically ill patients, developing a model of urgent brain health interventions for both family members and patients. Building on his genetic research, he has developed preventive care programs for individuals whose genes or other exposures put them at high risk for brain disease. The Center’s multidisciplinary Brain Health practice Dr. Rosand founded saw its first outpatients in 2016.

Read more:

http://www.strokegenomics.org | https://researchers.mgh.harvard.edu/profile?profile_id=147879