For more than 25 years, Dr. Holtzman and members of his research laboratory have worked to better understand the mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration, particularly in Alzheimer’s disease. More recently, he has studied the role of the protein tau and the connections between sleep loss and Alzheimer’s risk.
Dr. Holtzman has received a number of honors, including the MetLife Award for Alzheimer’s Disease Research (2007); the American Academy of Neurology Potamkin Prize for Research in Pick’s, Alzheimer’s, and Related Diseases (2003); a Paul Beeson Physician Faculty Scholar Award in Aging Research (1995); and a long-term MERIT grant award from the National Institute on Aging. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Inventors and the National Academy of Medicine, as well as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is the past president of the American Neurological Association and an appointed member of the national advisory council for the National Institute on Aging. At Washington University, he has received the Carl and Gerty Cori Faculty Achievement Award (2015) and was a corecipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (2013).
Dr. Holtzman earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees from Northwestern University. He completed an internship, residency, and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, where he established the Memory and Cognitive Disorders
Clinic and was assistant professor of neurology from 1991-94. In 1994, he came to Washington University as an assistant professor.