University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Makes Key Appointment as Head of New Movement Disorders Program​
PITTSBURGH, November 12, 2004 J. Timothy Greenamyre, M.D., Ph.D., has joined the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as professor and chief of the new movement disorders division of the department of neurology, announced Steven T. DeKosky, M.D., chair of neurology.
Dr. Greenamyre also will direct the Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases (PIND) which brings together the best clinical and laboratory investigators to develop new understandings, treatments and methods of prevention for a wide array of neurological diseases.
Dr. Greenamyres appointment represents a major commitment by the department, the School of Medicine and UPMC to our program, Dr. DeKosky said. Dr. Greenamyre is an eminent physician and researcher who brings prominence to our movement disorders program. He will be recruiting additional clinical and research faculty to join our program.
Dr. Greenamyre comes to Pittsburgh from Emory University in Atlanta, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1995. At Emory, he was professor and vice chair of neurology, co-director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease and director of the Movement Disorders Program.
He chairs the research grants subcommittee of the Huntingtons Disease Society of America, and was a member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Parkinsons Disease Research Agenda Planning Committee, the Parkinsons Disease Implementation Committee and the Neurological Sciences and Disorders B Study Section of the National Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases and Stroke (NINDS).
Dr. Greenamyre also is chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Parkinson Study Group and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Cure Parkinsons Project, the Parkinsons Disease Foundation and the Huntingtons Disease Society of America.
He is the editor of the scientific journal, Neurobiology of Disease, and an associate editor of The Journal of Neuroscience, section editor of Functional Neurology, and serves on the editorial boards of Neurology and Critical Reviews in Neurobiology. In October 2004, he delivered the Presidential Lecture at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
Dr. Greenamyres research includes mechanisms that cause nerve cell death in disorders such as Parkinson's, Huntington's and Alzheimer's diseases. In Parkinsons disease, he is interested in interactions between environmental toxins (natural or man-made) and genes that increase or decrease an individuals susceptibility to developing the disease and the role of glutamate neurotransmission in the symptoms of Parkinson's. In Huntingtons disease, his laboratory focuses on mitochondrial calcium handling and proteomics.
Dr. Greenamyre received his bachelor of science from Michigan State University and his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. After his neurology residency at the University of Michigan, he joined the faculty of the University of Rochester in 1990 and the faculty of Emory University in 1995.