Staff Spotlight

In 2011, Hank Paulson was absolutely thrilled to assume directorship of the MADC. “There is no more important neurological problem today than Alzheimer’s disease,” says Dr. Paulson. “As MADC director, I want to do as much as I possibly can to help us understand and treat this condition. The problem of age-related dementia in the United States is not going away. In fact it’s getting bigger every year, and we have so much more to learn. So, let’s get to work!”

Dr. Paulson is the Lucile Groff Professor of Neurology for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders in the Department of Neurology, where he also oversees the Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Program and cares for patients with cognitive impairment and movement disorders. After receiving his MD and PhD degrees from Yale University in 1990, he completed his neurology residency and fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1997, he joined the Neurology faculty at the University of Iowa where he remained until he joined the University of Michigan faculty in 2007. A native of Columbus, Ohio, he is proudly now a Michigan Wolverine (but don’t tell his brothers!).

From his early days as a graduate student, Dr. Paulson has been interested in a biological puzzle: proteins, when they misfold and aggregate, can damage brain cells and brain function. We now know that this problem of protein misfolding and aggregation underlies all of the major forms of dementia including Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Paulson’s research lab tackles this problem, focusing both on understanding disease mechanisms and on developing preventive therapy for these devastating, largely uncurable disorders.  His research and clinical interests address the causes and treatment of a variety of age-related neurodegenerative diseases. He has made seminal discoveries about protein misfolding brain diseases, and helped pioneer the use of RNA interference to silence toxic disease genes in degenerative brain disorders. Dr. Paulson’s current MADC-supported project complements the work coordinated by Jason Gestwicki, PhD, which is described in our Research Spotlight.

Dr. Paulson has also directed numerous popular courses at the American Academy of Neurology meetings, serves on the scientific advisory boards of various disease-related national organizations and is current chairperson of the Board of Scientific Counselors at the NIH’s National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Among his awards, Dr. Paulson was an Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging and a recipient of the Paul Beeson Physician Faculty Scholar in Aging Award from the American Federation for Aging Research.

For more information, henryp@umich.edu

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Judith Heidebrink, MD