Mark Tuszynski

Dr. Tuszynski received his undergraduate and M.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He received clinical training in neurology at Cornell University Medical Center in NY, NY from 1984-1987, and became board-certified in neurology in 1989. He attended graduate school at the University of California-San Diego from 1988-1991, earning a Ph.D. in neuroscience. Dr. Tuszynski joined the faculty of the Department of Neurosciences at the University of California-San Diego in 1991. He is currently Professor and Director of the UCSD Center for Neural Repair, and Founding Director of the UCSD Translational Neuroscience Institute.

Dr. Tuszynski’s research focuses on the role of growth factors in influencing cell survival, plasticity and regeneration in the adult central nervous system. He actively researches the topics of Alzheimer’s disease, aging, cellular mechanisms of normal memory, and spinal cord injury. In 2001 he began the first human clinical trial of gene therapy to treat an adult human  neurodegenerative disease, testing the effects of nerve growth factor gene delivery in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease. He has won 10 national awards for neurodegeneration research, and is the author of over 200 scientific and medical publications.