Tsuneya Ikezu, MD, PhD

Tsuneya Ikezu is a professor of pharmacology and neurology at Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Ikezu received his MD and PhD degrees from University of Tokyo School of Medicine (Japan), and completed post-doctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Cleveland Clinic Foundation. He has been investigating Alzheimer’s disease (AD) over 20 years, and he has performed pioneering research into how modulation of neuroinflammation or neurogenesis enhances hippocampal function and ameliorates AD-like neuropathology through viral gene transfer system. He originally discovered caveolae as a platform of APP processing, cloned tau-tubulin kinase-1 as a neuron-specific tau kinase, characterized anti-inflammatory cytokine modulation of hippocampal neurogenesis for cognitive enhancement, described microglia-neural stem cell interactions, and recently discovered new roles of microglia and exosomes for spreading of pathogenic tau protein in the brain. He has authored more than 70 journal articles, edited the textbook, “Neuroimmune Pharmacology” as a senior editor, and served on the editorial boards of Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology, Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis, and PLoS One [Public Library of Science One]. Over his career, Dr. Ikezu has served on multiple NIH study sections and received the Vada Kinman Oldfield Alzheimer’s Research Award in 2000 and the Inge Grundke-Iqbal Award for Alzheimer's Research in 2016.