Lennart Mucke, MD, is the Director of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease. He is also the Joseph B. Martin Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and a Professor of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He has joint appointments in UCSF’s Neuroscience, Biomedical Sciences, and Medical Scientist (MD/PhD) Graduate Training Programs. Dr. Mucke is a graduate of the Georg-August University (Magna Cum Laude) and the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Neurobiology) in Göttingen, Germany. He trained in internal medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, in neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and in neuroimmunology and neurovirology at The Scripps Research Institute, where he was subsequently appointed to the faculty. He was recruited to the Gladstone Institutes and UCSF in 1996.
Dr. Mucke’s research focuses on processes that result in memory loss and other major neurological deficits, with an emphasis on Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. He has generated informative experimental models of these conditions and used them to identify novel strategies to prevent neurological decline. As the founding Director of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease, he has created a leading program for research and training in disease-focused neuroscience.
Dr. Mucke is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, American Neurological Association and Association of American Physicians and the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. He has served on the National Advisory Council on Aging for the U.S. National Institutes of Health and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the U.K. Dementia Research Institute at University College London. He has also chaired the Senate of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE). Awards and honors Dr. Mucke has received for his accomplishments include the Potamkin Prize from the American Academy of Neurology, Metlife Foundation Award for Medical Research, American Pacesetter Award from the ARCS Foundation, Kalid Iqbal Lifetime Achievement Award and the Zenith Award from the Alzheimer’s Association, a MERIT Award from the NIH, and Award for Excellence in Direct Teaching and Mentoring from the Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators.