Affiliation: University of Illinois at Chicago

Dr. Gerardo Morfini’s completed his Ph.D. studies in 1997 at the National University of Cordoba in Argentina. He was later awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from the prestigious Pew Latin American Fellows Program in the Biomedical Sciences, which he completed at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Morfini started his own research program in 2007, working as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Shortly after his appointment, he was awarded the 2007 Jordi Folch-Pi Award, a recognition given by the American Society of Neurochemistry for his contributions to the field of axonal transport. 

As an Associate Professor at UIC, Dr. Morfini’s current research program addresses the contribution of specific protein kinases to the axonal pathology observed in various human neurodegenerative conditions including Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Hereditary Spastic Paraplegias. As part of his summer research program, Dr. Morfini also works at the Marine Biological Laboratory (Cape Cod, MA) during the summers, where he performs experiments using the isolated squid axoplasm preparation. He has authored over sixty peer-reviewed papers, review articles, and book chapters. Dr. Morfini has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, as well as foundations supporting research on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Huntington’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.