South Australia Health and Medical Research Institute
Rockefeller University New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center
Research
Amyloid impact in Alzheimer’s disease, neurology, cell biology
Samuel E. Gandy, is a neurologist, cell biologist, Alzheimer's disease (AD) researcher and expert in the metabolism of the sticky substance called amyloid that clogs the brain in patients with Alzheimer's. His team discovered the first drugs that could lower the formation of amyloid.[1]
Gandy has written more than 250 peer-reviewed papers,[7] chapters and reviews on this topic. He has received continuous National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for his research on amyloid metabolism since 1986.[8] He holds four patents that can be implemented to regulate key proteins, inhibiting Alzheimer-type amyloidosis and a diagnostic method for Alzheimer disease, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, dystonia ataxia, schizophrenia, epilepsy, brain tumors, brain irradiation, head trauma, and acute and chronic encephalitic and vascular disease. Gandy also studies brain imaging as a tool to confirm chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in retired athletes and war Veterans during their lifetimes.[9]
Patents
Use of phosphoprotein patterns for diagnosis of neurological and psychiatric disorders, (1989).[10]
Treatment of amyloidosis associated with Alzheimer disease, (1993).[11]
Method of screening for modulators of amyloid formation, (1994).[12]
Treatment of amyloidosis associated with Alzheimer disease using modulators of protein phosphorylation, (1995).[13]
Grants
Gandy worked on 36 research grants, 18 as principal investigator, since 1986. As of 2020, he works on nine active grants.[14][15][16][17][18]
Partial list of active grants in 2020:
Funding Source, & Number
Project Title
Description
NIH-NIA to NYSCF, R01 AG061894
Use of iPSC systems to define roles of microglial TREM2/DAP12 and CR3/DAP12 complexes and their genetic variants in specifying risk for late-onset sporadic Alzheimer’s disease.
Develop a system based on mixing various individual iPSC-derived brain cell types or on the cultivation of organoids where all the cell types are naturally represented.
NIH-NIA, U01 AG046170
Integrative Network Biology Approaches to Identify, Characterize and Validate Molecular Subtypes in AD.
Identify and characterize molecular subtypes of AD with state-of-the-art network biology approaches to all existing large-scale genetic, gene expression, proteomic and functional MRI data
NIH-NIA, R01AG058469
Integrated understanding of complex viral network biology in Alzheimer’s Disease
Develop and experimentally evaluate novel molecular models of microbial perturbation in AD.
NIH-NIA, RF1AG059319
Systematic Drug Repurposing Targeting Immune Activation Networks in Alzheimer’s Disease
To leverage recent insights from genetic studies and drug repurposing to identify established therapies that could be repurposed to meet the great unmet need for new and effective treatments targeting immune dysfunction in AD.
NIH, R01AG057907
Integrative Network Modeling of Cognitive Resilience to Alzheimer’s Disease
Systematically develop and validate molecular network models underlying cognitive resilience to AD risk.
Gandy was appointed associate professor of neurology and neurosciences at Cornell University Medical College in 1992. In 1997, he moved to New York University where he served as professor of psychiatry and cell biology until his appointment as Paul C. Brucker, M.D., Professor of Neuroscience at Jefferson Medical College and Director of the Farber Institute for Neurosciences in 2001. In July 2007, he assumed his current post as Sinai Professor of Alzheimer’s Disease Research at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He is also a member of the Research Consortium of the Cure Alzheimer's Fund.[23]
In 2009, Gandy was featured with other prominent research scientists as one of GQ's "Rockstars of Science" [24] and featured in the documentary film I Remember Better When I Paint that examines the phenomenon of how the creative arts awaken pathways to emotional parts of the brain.[25]
^Kaiser, Jocelyn (30 August 2018). "The Alzheimer's gamble: NIH tries to turn billions in new funding into treatment for deadly brain disease". Science. doi:10.1126/science.aav2455. S2CID81526319.
^US 4874694, Gandy, Samuel E. & Greengard, Paul, "United States Patent: 4874694 - Use of phosphoprotein patterns for diagnosis of neurological and psychiatric disorders", published 1989-10-17, assigned to The Rockefeller University
^US 5242932, Gandy, Samuel E.; Caporaso, Gregg L. & Greengard, Paul, "Treatment of amyloidosis associated with Alzheimer disease", published 1993-09-07, assigned to The Rockefeller University
^US 5348963, Gandy, Samuel E.; Caporaso, Gregg L & Greengard., Paul, "Method of screening for modulators of amyloid formation", published 1994-09-20, assigned to The Rockefeller University
^US 5385915, Buxbaum, Joseph D.; Gandy, Samuel E. & Greengard, Paul, "Treatment of amyloidosis associated with Alzheimer disease using modulators of protein phosphorylation", published 1995-01-31, assigned to The Rockefeller University