Rudolph E. Tanzi

Dr. Rudolph E. Tanzi is Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, Director of the McCance Center for Brain Health, and Co-Director of the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease at Massachusetts General Hospital. He also serves as the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Tanzi co-discovered the first Alzheimer’s disease (AD) gene, the amyloid precursor protein (APP) gene, and the two other early-onset familial AD genes, presenilin 1 and 2. As leader of the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund Alzheimer’s Genome Project, Dr. Tanzi identified several other AD genes, including CD33, the first AD gene shown to regulate neuroinflammation in AD. He also discovered the Wilson’s disease gene and other neurodegenerative disease genes.

Dr. Tanzi’s team was the first to use human stem cells to create three-dimensional mini human brain organoids and 3D neural-glial culture models of AD, dubbed “Alzheimer’s-in-a-Dish”. These models was the first to recapitulate all three key AD pathological hallmarks. He and his team have successfully used these organoids to screen for approved drugs and natural products that can stop AD brain pathology. Dr. Tanzi has help to develop several novel therapies for AD including gamma secretase modulators targeting amyloid pathology (Phase 1 clinical trial planned 2025), which were licensed to Acta Pharmaceuticals, a company he co-founded in 2022. Dr. Tanzi also first discovered that beta-amyloid plays a functional role in the brain as a host-defense peptide, leading to his “antimicrobial protection hypothesis” of AD.

Dr. Tanzi serves as Chair of the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund Research Leadership Group and on numerous scientific advisory and editorial boards, He has published over 700 research papers and is one of the top 50 most cited neuroscientists in the world. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has received the highest awards in his field, including the Metropolitan Life Foundation Award, Potamkin Prize, Ronald Reagan Award, Oneness in Humanity Award, Silver Innovator Award, the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award, the Brain Research Foundation Award, and the Kary Mullis Award for Medical Research. He has also been named to TIME magazine’s list of TIME100 Most Influential People in the World. Dr. Tanzi has made numerous TV appearances and is a New York Times bestselling author, who has co-authored the books Decoding Darkness, and bestsellers, Super Brain, Super Genes, and The Healing Self. In his spare time, Dr. Tanzi plays keyboards on records by Aerosmith and Joe Perry.