Dennis J. Selkoe, MD, is the Vincent and Stella Coates Professor of Neurologic Diseases at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH). He is the co-founder and co-director of the Center for Neurologic Diseases at BWH and co-founder and co-chair of the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center. A graduate of Columbia University and the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Dr. Selkoe completed training at the National Institutes of Health (NINDS), followed by a residency in neurology at the Harvard Longwood Neurology Program and then a fellowship in cell biology and neurochemistry in the Department of Neuroscience at Boston Children's Hospital.

Dr. Selkoe has devoted much of his career to the use of molecular approaches to the study of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease. For the past 35 years, Dr. Selkoe and his colleagues have made numerous discoveries, and his work on the amyloid hypothesis of AD has helped provide the underpinning of numerous clinical trials.

Dr. Selkoe has received many honors, including the A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), the Mathilde Solowey Award in the Neurosciences (NIH), the Potamkin Prize and the George C. Cotzias Lecture (American Academy of Neurology), and the Pioneer Award and Lifetime Achievement Award (Alzheimer's Association).  He is a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and Association of American Physicians and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. He was the principal founding scientist of Athena Neurosciences, now part of Elan Pharmaceuticals.