MIND

Rudy Tanzi, PhD

Dr. Tanzi directs the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at MIND. In 1980, he was on the team with Dr. James Gusella that found the Huntington's disease gene and subsequently has found four genes that are implicated in familial Alzheimer's disease.

Over the past eight years, much of Dr. Tanzi's research has centered around two genes known as the "presenilins", mutations which account for up to half of early-onset familial Alzheimer's disease. Most recently, Dr. Tanzi has been investigating the biochemical mechanisms by which defects in these genes cause neurodegeneration in AD including their roles in apoptotic cell death. Also ongoing are genetic linkage studies to localize and isolate novel genes causing the remaining 70% of AD for which the gene defects have not yet been identified.