Rudolph (Rudy) Tanzi, Ph.D.

Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School

Harvard Program in Neuroscience Affiliate Faculty Member, Harvard Medical School

Vice-Chair, Massachusetts General Hospital Neurology Department

Director, Genetics and Aging Research Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Rudolph Tanzi is the Vice-Chair of Neurology, Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, and Co-Director of the Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital, and serves as the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Tanzi received his B.S. (microbiology) and B.A. (history) at the University of Rochester in 1980 and his Ph.D. (neurobiology) at Harvard Medical School in 1990.

​Dr. Tanzi served on the team that used the first human genetic markers to find a disease gene (Huntington’s disease). He went on to first discover the amyloid precursor protein gene, the first Alzheimer’s disease (AD) gene and he co-discovered the two other early-onset familial AD genes, known as the presenilins. As leader of the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund Alzheimer’s Genome Project, Dr. Tanzi identified several other AD genes, including ADAM10 and CD33. He also discovered the Wilson’s disease gene and several other neurological disease genes.

Publications

Eimer WA, Vijaya Kumar DK, Navalpur Shanmugam NK, Rodriguez AS, Mitchell T, Washicosky KJ, György B, Breakefield XO, Tanzi RE, Moir RD. Alzheimer's Disease-Associated β-Amyloid Is Rapidly Seeded by Herpesviridae to Protect against Brain Infection. Neuron. 2018 Jul 11;99(1):56-63. PMID: 30001512

Choi SH, Bylykbashi E, Chatila ZK, Lee SW, Pulli B, Clemenson GD, E-H Kim, Rompala A, Oram MK, Asselin C, Aronson J, Zhang C, Miller SJ, Lesinski A, Chen JW, Kim DY, van Praag H, Spiegelman BM Gage FH, Tanzi RE. Induced Adult Neurogenesis in Combination with BDNF Mimics the Effects of Exercise on Cognition in an Alzheimer’s Mouse Model. Science, 2018 361(6406) PMID: 30190379

Park J, Wetzel I, Marriott I, Dréau D, D’Avanzo C, Kim D-Y, Tanzi RE, Cho H. Neuron-Glia Interactions Recapitulated in a 3D Organotypic Human Alzheimer’s Disease Brain Model. Nature Neuroscience 2018, 21(7):941-951

Choi SH, Kim YH, Hebisch M, Sliwinski C, Lee S, D'Avanzo C, Chen J, Hooli B, Asselin C, Muffat J, Klee JB, Zhang C, Wainger BJ, Peitz M, Kovacs DM, Woolf CJ, Wagner SL, Tanzi RE, Kim DY. (2014) A three-dimensional human neural cell culture model of Alzheimer's disease. Nature 2014 13;515(7526):274-8. PMID: 25307057

Griciuc A, Serrano-Pozo A, Parrado AR, Lesinski AN, Asselin CN, Mullin K, Hooli B, Choi SH, Hyman BT, Tanzi RE. Alzheimer’s Disease Risk Gene CD33 Inhibits Microglial Uptake of Amyloid Beta, Neuron, 2013, 78(4):631-43 PMID: 23623698

JH