Dr. Greg Petsko

Dr. Gregory Petsko graduated Summa cum Laude from Princeton University in 1970 and received his D. Phil. as a Rhodes Scholar from Oxford University in Molecular Biophysics in 1973. He was Professor of Chemistry at MIT from 1978 to 1990, when he moved to Brandeis University, where from 1994 to 2008 he served as Director of the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center and from 1996 to 2012 was Gyula and Katica Tauber Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry. His research interests include protein structure and function and the development of methods to treat age-related neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS (Lou Gehrig’s), Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s Diseases. Over the next 40 years, according to Dr. Petsko, “There will be an epidemic of neurologic diseases on an epic scale.”  By the year 2050, the U.S. population will include 32 million people over the age of 80; about half of those will have Alzheimer’s disease, and another three million will have Parkinson’s. Understandably, the time for more research, treatment, and prevention is now.