Dr. Tuszynski received his undergraduate and M.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He received clinical training in neurology at Cornell University Medical Center in NY, NY from 1984-1987, and became board-certified in neurology in 1989. He attended graduate school at the University of California-San Diego from 1988-1991, earning a Ph.D. in neuroscience. Dr. Tuszynski joined the faculty of the Department of Neurosciences at the University of California-San Diego in 1991. He is currently Distinguished Professor and Director of the UCSD Center for Neural Repair, and Founding Director of the UCSD Translational Neuroscience Institute. Dr. Tuszynski's research focuses on the role of growth factors and stem cells in influencing cell survival, plasticity and regeneration in the adult central nervous system. He actively researches the topics of Alzheimer's disease, spinal cord injury, cellular mechanisms of normal memory, and bioengineering. In 2001 he conducted the first human clinical trial of gene therapy to treat an adult neurological disorder, testing the effects of nerve growth factor gene delivery in patients with early Alzheimer's disease. He is performing a first-in-human clinical trial of BDNF gene therapy in Alzheimer’s disease, and a first-in-human clinical trial of biomimetic nerve regeneration scaffolds in peripheral nerve injury. He has won over 20 national research awards and is the author of over 300 scientific and medical publications.