Patrizia Casaccia, MD, PhD

Patrizia Casaccia, MD, PhD is an internationally recognized expert in the field of myelination and axonal damage in demyelinating disorders. She is a Professor of Neuroscience, Genomics and Multiscale Biology, and Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. She received her medical degree in Rome, where she was also a resident in Neurology. Dr. Casaccia then moved to the United States where she obtained a PhD in Neurobiology. After her post-doctoral work at Weil Cornell Medical Center in New York, she moved to the Skirball Institute for Biomolecular Medicine at NYU and then to Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (Rutgers Medical School). In 2008 she moved to Mount Sinai, where she directs the Center of Excellence on Myelin Disorders at the Friedman Brain Institute. Her Research has a translational focus by investigating molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying myelin formation and neuroprotection.

Dr. Casaccia’s research is funded by grants from the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, by the Department of Defense and by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. She has more than 110 high-quality publications in top peer-reviewed journals, including Nature, Genes and Development, Nature Neuroscience, and Neuron. She has also received many honors and awards including the New Jersey Cancer Commission Award for Scientific Excellence (2001) and Recognition Award Rutgers Women in Neuroscience. (2005). She is on the editorial board of multiple peer-reviewed journals and serves on grant advisory panels for the National Institute of Health, the Department of the Army and for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society