Dr. Trojanowski obtained his MD/PhD in 1976 from Tufts University in Boston. After a medicine internship at Mt. Auburn Hospital and Harvard Medical School, he began pathology/neuropathology training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School (1977-1979), and completed training at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1980 where he was appointed assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (1/1/1981) and rose to tenured full professor in 1990.
Dr. Trojanowski's major leadership positions include: Director of a National Institute of Aging (NIA) Alzheimer's Disease Center (1991-present), Principal Investigator of a NIA Program Project Grant on Alzheimer's (AD) and Parkinson's (PD) disease (1990-present), Director of Medical Pathology (1988-2002), Interim Director (2001-2002) and Director (2002-present) of the Institute on Aging and Co-Director (1992-present) of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research (CNDR) at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
For over 15 years, Dr. Trojanowski has conducted research on AD, PD, motor neuron disease, dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), frontotemporal dementias and related disorders. Most of his 450 papers, reviews and monographs focus on the pathobiology of neurodegenerative disorders, especially on the role of abnormal filamentous protein aggregates in the onset/progression of these disorders.
Dr. Trojanowski has received several awards for his research including a MERIT Award (1986-1994) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Metropolitan Life Foundation Promising Investigator Award For Alzheimer's Disease Research (1991), membership in the American Society of Clinical Investigation (1991), an Established Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (1994), the Metropolitan Life Foundation Award For Alzheimer's Disease Research (1996), the Potamkin Prize For Research In Pick's, Alzheimer's And Related Diseases (1998), the first Pioneer Award from the Alzheimer's Association (1998), ISI Highly Cited Researcher 2000 (most highly cited neuroscientists for 1981-1999), the Stanley Cohen Biomedical Research Award of the University of Pennsylvania (2000), and membership in the Association of American Physicians (2000) as well as the Institute of Medicine (2002). He was elected President of the American Association of Neuropathologists (1997-1998), and is on the editorial board of several neuroscience and pathology journals. Dr. Trojanowski has served and continues to serve on local and national aging research committees including the NIA Neuroscience, Behavior and Sociology of Aging Study Section (1987-1991), the National Advisory Council on Aging (NACA) of the NIA (1994-1998), the NACA Working Group Chair (1996-1998), the Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of the National Alzheimer's Association (1994-1997) as well as of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association (1992- present), the NIA Board of Scientific Counselors (1998-present), the Advisory Board of the Paul Beeson Physician Faculty Scholars In Aging Award (1998-present), the Program Committee of the World Alzheimer Congress 2000 (1998-2000), the Organizing Committee of the 6th International Conference On Progress In Alzheimer's And Parkinson's Disease, in 2003 in Seville, Spain (2001-2003), the Scientific Advisory Board of the Alliance For Aging Research (2002-present) and Chair of the "Biology of Synuclein and Cortical Lewy Bodies Associated with Dementia in AD, LBD, and PD" (July, 2001) and 'Genetics of Alzheimer's Disease (March, 2002) workshops organized by NIA and the National Institute on Neurological Diseases and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland.