Prof. Bart De Strooper University College London, UK

Bart De Strooper is professor in dementia research at the University College London, UK. He has been the founding director of the UK Dementia Research Institute (2016-2023) and is now a group leader in the same institute. He is also parttime Professor of molecular medicine at the KU Leuven and... read moreVIB, Belgium.

De Strooper’s scientific work focuses on the understanding of the fundamental mechanisms that underlie Alzheimer’s disease. His major findings are the role of ADAM10 and presenilin/gamma-secretase in the proteolysis of the amyloid precursor protein and Notch, and he has worked on microRNA, mitochondria, and more recently on the role of the different brain cell types in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease. He developed a novel theory for Alzheimer’s Disease which he called the cellular phase, to explain the long prodromal phase of the disorder. He received his M.D. in 1985 and Ph.D. in 1991 from KU Leuven. He worked as postdoctoral researcher in the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, in the laboratory of Carlos Dotti.

In 2018, Bart De Strooper, together with John Hardy, Christian Haas, and Michel Goedert, was awarded the Brain Prize for their ground-breaking research on the genetic and molecular basis of Alzheimer disease. Other awards include the Potamkin Award of the American Academy of Neurology in 2002 (USA), the 2003 Alois Alzheimer Award of the Deutscher Gesellschaft für Gerontopsychiatrie und psychotherapie (Germany), the Joseph Maisin Prize in 2005 for fundamental biomedical sciences, (FWO Flanders, Belgium), the 2008 Metlife Foundation Award for medical research (USA) and the 2018 European Grand Prix for Research (France).