On the Road to Curing Alzheimer’s Disease
How to Relieve a Traffic Jam in the Brain
The symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease reflect damage to connections among nerve cells in the brain. We recently discovered how two proteins that accumulate in Alzheimer’s brain conspire to destroy these connections, and we are extending our search to finding a cure.
Download the slides from George Bloom’s presentation.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Alumni Hall
211 Emmet Street South
Charlottesville, VA 22903
George Bloom moved to the University of Virginia in August, 2000, after spending 16 years at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, where he was a Professor in the Department of Cell Biology. He holds faculty positions here in both the College of Arts and Sciences (Department of Biology) and the School of Medicine (Department of Cell Biology). His alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, awarded him a B.A. in Biology and History in 1973, and a Ph.D. in Biology in 1979. Dr. Bloom’s career has focused primarily on fundamental cell biological questions, most notably how mammalian cells move and change shape, and transport cellular building blocks from place to place within the cell. Recently, this basic science approach led directly to more clinically relevant research on Alzheimer’s disease, which is now a dominant theme in his lab. He has published 70 scientific papers, has served on grant review panels for the NIH, the American Cancer Society and the Department of Defense, is currently an Associate Editor for the journal CELL MOTILITY AND THE CYTOSKELETON, and his lab is presently funded by the NIH and the Alzheimer’s Association. Dr. Bloom lives in Charlottesville with his wife, Patricia Bloom, who is a first grade teacher at Brownsville Elementary School in Albemarle County. If he is not working in his lab in Gilmer Hall, you might find him fly fishing on a nearby trout stream.