Institute Founding Director
Vice Chancellor for Faculty Development
Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences
Distinguished Professor of Neurology
William Dow Lovett Professor of Neurology
Chief, Division of Movement Disorders
Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Biography and Research Interests:
Maral Mouradian, M.D., is Distinguished Professor of Neurology, William Dow Lovett Endowed Professor of Neurology, and Chief of the Division of Movement Disorders at Rutgers - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. She is also Founding Director of the RWJMS Institute for Neurological Therapeutics, and Vice Chancellor for Faculty Development at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. Dr. Mouradian obtained her medical degree with distinction from the American University of Beirut and neurology training at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. She then joined the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) where she received postdoctoral training in clinical pharmacological research in Parkinson disease (PD) and other neurodegenerative disorders in the laboratory of Thomas N. Chase of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). She received additional training in molecular biology under the tutelage of the Nobel Laureate Marshall Nirenberg at the National Health, Lung and Blood Institute. Prior to joining Rutgers, Dr. Mouradian led the Genetic Pharmacology research program of NINDS, NIH. As an internationally recognized physician-scientist, her career focus has been to elucidate the molecular pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and its treatment complications, and to develop therapies both for disease modification and improved symptom control. Her seminal contributions have provided the rationale for the development of continuous therapeutic modalities for PD. To date, she has authored over 220 scholarly publications, edited two books on Parkinson disease, and holds several patents. Her research is funded by multiple grants from the NIH, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, the American Parkinson Disease Association, and other foundations.Dr. Mouradian is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians, the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, a Fellow of the American Neurological Association, a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology, and an alumna of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM). She serves on the Board of Directors of the American Neurological Association, grant review panels for the NIH and other national and international funding agencies, and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the American Parkinson Disease Association. In addition, she is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Neurotherapeutics. Among her honors are the Excellence in Research Award from the New Jersey Health Foundation, the Outstanding Medical Scientist Award from the Edward J. Ill Excellence in Medicine Foundation, the Rutgers Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research, the Honorary Alumni Award from Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, the Daniel Gorenstein Memorial Award, and the NIH Award of Merit.
Publications
Professor and Chairman of Neurology
Ruth Dunietz Kushner and Michael Jay Serwitz Chair in Multiple Sclerosis
Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School & Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Biography and Research Interests:
Suhayl Dhib-Jalbut, MD is Professor and Chairman of the Departments of Neurology at RUTGERS-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and New Jersey Medical School. He also directs the RWJ Center for Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Dr. Dhib-Jalbut graduated Alpha-Omega-Alpha from the American University of Beirut in
Lebanon and completed his Neurology training at the University of Cincinnati. He then joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland where he specialized in MS and Neuroimmunology.
Dr. Dhib-Jalbut’s extramurally funded research includes how MS therapies work, biomarkers of treatment response in MS, and neuroprotective gene therapy. To date, he has contributed over 130 manuscripts to the scientific literature. He has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Neuroimmunology, and is currently Associate Editor of the MS Journal and a member of the Editorial Boards of JICR, Cytokine, and Multiple Sclerosis. He has served on several National and International scientific committees including Chairmanship of the Scientific Committee for the World Congress on MS in 2008. Dr. Dhib-Jalbut served as President of the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in MS (ACTRIMS) and presided over the largest international MS Congress held in Boston in 2014. Dr. Dhib-Jalbut has been on the Best Doctors in America list since 2009 and has received several awards and recognitions including the Norman H. Edelman clinical science mentoring award at Rutgers, the Medical Excellence Award from the National MS Society, the Outstanding Medical Scientist Award from the Edward J. Ill Excellence in Medicine Foundation, and the Excellence in Research Award from the New Jersey Health Foundation.
Publications
Clinical and Research Instructor
Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Biography and Research Interests:
Hilary Grosso Jasutkar, MD, PhD earned her PhD in neuroscience in 2012 under the supervision of Dr. M. Maral Mouradian, and her medical degree in 2014, both at Rutgers – Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RJWMS). She then completed a medical internship at Lankenau Medical Center, followed by a residency in neurology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC). After her residency training, Dr. Grosso pursued a medical fellowship in the management of age-related disorders of cognition in the CUIMC Neurology Department’s Division of Aging and Dementia, during which time she worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Ai Yamamoto at CUIMC. She then joined the Rutgers – RWJMS Institute for Neurological Therapeutics as a clinical and research Instructor in Neurology in 2021.
Dr. Grosso’s research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms by which autophagy supports synaptic function, and how protein misfolding in neurodegenerative diseases disrupts synaptic autophagy. Currently she is using genetically modified mice to model autophagy loss in the adult, and to study the impact of the Alzheimer’s disease-associated protein APP on autophagy at the synapse.
Associate Professor of Neurology
Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Biography and Research Interests:
Dr. Eunsung Junn is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at Rutgers - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Prior to joining Rutgers, he received post-doctoral training at the NIH and earned his Ph.D from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). His laboratory currently focuses on understanding the pathogenetic mechanisms of Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord injury and their treatments, with a particular emphasis on the role of microRNAs. His research has been funded by multiple grants from the NIH, the American Parkinson Disease Association, the New Jersey Commission on Spinal Cord Research, and other foundations.
Publications
Associate Professor of Neurology
Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Biography and Research Interests:
Dr. Kouichi Ito is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He received training in molecular immunology as a visiting scientist at MIT and earned his PhD in Immunology from The Jikei University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan. Prior to assuming his position at Rutgers-RWJMS, he served as a Laboratory Head in the Department of Immunology at Hoffmann-La Roche (Nutley, NJ) and studied the effects of Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) on the development of autoimmune diseases including Multiple Sclerosis (MS). He also served as the Acting Chief of the Neurological Disease Section in the Neuroimmunology Branch at NIH/NINDS and studied the mechanism of encephalitogenic T cell development using humanized animal models of MS. His group focuses on understanding the pathological mechanisms of initiation and progression in MS using experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model of MS. He is currently investigating the link between gut microbiota and development of MS and how neuroinflammation triggers neurodegeneration such as demyelination and axonal loss. His laboratory is also investigating the therapeutic mechanism of FDA-approved disease modifying drugs for MS using specimens derived from MS patients and EAE animal models. His research has been funded by multiple grants from the NIH, Department of Defense, National MS Society, and other foundations.
Publications
Professor of Neurology
Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Biography and Research Interests:
Yoon-Seong Kim, MD, PhD earned his medical degree from Kyung-Hee University Medical College in Seoul, Korea, and his Ph.D. in neuroscience from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences in 2003 under the supervision of Prof. Tong H. Joh. He then joined Dr. Flint Beal’s lab in the same institute as a postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Kim went on to join the research faculty at Cornell as an instructor in 2006 and was promoted to assistant professor in 2009. In 2010, he moved to the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Central Florida as an assistant professor of neurodegenerative disorders and became an associate professor with tenure in 2015. He joined the RWJMS Institute for Neurological Therapeutics at Rutgers - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in 2020. His research has been funded by multiple grants from the NIH, DOD and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. He serves on NIH grant review panels and on the editorial board of Scientific Reports.
Dr. Kim’s research focuses mainly on the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms underlying oxidative stress-related nigrostriatal degeneration in Parkinson’s disease (PD) using a range of rodent PD models. He reported for the first time that NADPH oxidase 1 (NOX1) is expressed in dopaminergic neurons and that NOX1-derived ROS is responsible for dopaminergic neuronal degeneration and α-synuclein aggregation, which are pathological hallmarks of PD. Currently, his research is expanding to investigate the molecular mechanisms governing oxidative stress-mediated α-synuclein changes including epigenetic and translational regulation as well as protein aggregation and impact on mitochondrial functions. He has recently introduced the innovative concept of transcriptional mutagenesis (TM) of the SNCA gene and its contribution to PD pathogenesis. This original idea is widely applicable to other neurodegenerative conditions including Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer’s disease. His research pipeline is highly interdisciplinary and integrates core areas of neurodegenerative diseases.
Yoon Kim's Lab Website
Assistant Professor of Neurology
Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Biography and Research Interests:
Dr. Eleanna Kara is joining the Department of Neurology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the RWJMS Institute for Neurological Therapeutics as a tenure track assistant professor in September 2023. She earned her MD from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, followed by an MSc in Neuroscience and a PhD in Neurogenetics from University College London (UCL) in the United Kingdom under the supervision of Sir Prof. John Hardy and Prof. Henry Houlden. She continued her research training as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital in the lab of Prof. Brad Hyman. Afterwards, she moved to Switzerland where she started her neuropathology residency in Adriano Aguzzi’s lab at the University Hospital Zurich and completed her residency at Queen Square/University College London Hospital. She also completed a clinical fellowship in bone and soft tissue pathology at the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital. Throughout her clinical training, she remained active in basic science research by working as a postdoc in Profs Adriano Aguzzi’s and John Hardy’s labs at the University of Zurich and UCL, respectively. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (FRCPath) in diagnostic neuropathology, as well as a European Fellow in Neuropathology (EFN). Her postdoctoral research has been funded by long term fellowships from European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP).
Dr. Kara’s research focuses on understanding the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease and Dementia with Lewy Bodies, with a particular focus on the mechanisms involved in a-synuclein propagation and formation of inclusions. She recently published a seminal paper on the first genome-wide, high throughput screen for a-synuclein propagation. Her lab uses high throughput screens and -omics and develops genetically encodable tools to study the networks involved in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases (Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases), with the ultimate aim being to develop combination treatments for those devastating diseases.
Eleanna Kara’s website: www.eleannakaralab.com
