Rate My Professor David Holtzman

David M. Holtzman, MD, is the Barbara Burton and Reuben M. Morriss III Distinguished Professor of Neurology at Washington University in St. Louis. He earned his BS and MD from Northwestern University in the early 1980s, completed his neurology residency at the University of California, San Francisco, from 1985 to 1989, and conducted postdoctoral research there until 1994. He joined Washington University School of Medicine in 1994 as an assistant professor and served as professor and chair of the Department of Neurology from 2003 to 2021. He currently serves as professor of neurology, scientific director of the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders, and director of the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center.

Holtzman’s research focuses on the mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration, with particular emphasis on Alzheimer’s disease. His laboratory has made key contributions in areas including the neurobiology of apoE and its receptors, the influence of apoE, Aβ binding molecules, neuronal activity, glucose, insulin, and sleep on Aβ metabolism, interactions involving apoE, TREM2, astrocytes, and microglia in Aβ-mediated tau seeding and spreading as well as tau-mediated neurodegeneration, the roles of the innate and adaptive immune systems in tau-mediated neurodegeneration, the effects of the sleep-wake cycle on Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis, and the development of CSF and plasma biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease. He has received numerous honors, including the Potamkin Prize, MetLife Award, Rainwater Prize, election to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as service on the National Advisory Councils of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the National Institute on Aging. Holtzman has also received the Chancellor’s Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Carl and Gerty Cori Award from Washington University. He has trained more than 70 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and physician-scientists.