John N. Whitaker Professor and Chair of Neurology
Director, UAB Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics (CNET)
Director, Division of Movement Disorders
Office: CIRC 516, 1719 6th Ave S, Birmingham AL 35294-0021
Email: dstandaert@uab.edu
Personal Info:
Dr. Standaert was named the John N. Whitaker Professor & Chair of Neurology in 2012. Prior to that he was appointed the John T. and Juanelle D. Strain Endowed Chair by the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama system, for which he served for five years, and was recently named Chair of the UAB Department of Neurology.
He received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Washington University in St. Louis in medicine and pharmacology in 1988. He completed a one-year internship in medicine at Jewish Hospital of St. Louis in 1989 and a three-year neurology residency in 1992 at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a three-year research and clinical fellowship in neurology (movement disorders) at Harvard Medical School Massachusetts General Hospital in 1995.
Dr. Standaert is licensed to practice medicine in the states of Massachusetts and Alabama and was board certified in 1993 by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
Dr. Standaert now serves as Director of the Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics (CNET), Director of the Division of Movement Disorders in the Department of Neurology, and also serves as Vice-Chair of Neurology . He sees patients in a weekly clinic and through the course of clinical trials of new therapuetics for Parkinson's disease.
Dr. Standaert's clinical teaching has consisted of: serving as an attending physician on the MGH Neurology inpatient service, one month each year; teaching residents, fellows and medical students in the Movement Disorders clinic on a weekly basis; and teaching in Resident's clinic about once a month. Classroom teaching has consisted of serving as member of the Core Faculty for Harvard Health Sciences Technology Pharmacology course (HST150) and a lecturer for the Harvard Medical School Human Neuroscience and Behavior course.
Specialty / Interests
My laboratory is interested in the pharmacology and neurochemistry of the basal ganglia, and the mechanisms of Parkinson's disease and other conditions which produce abnormalities of movement. Current areas of study include: 1) alteration in gene expression which may underlie the biology of synucleinopathies, including Parkinson's disease and Dementia with Lewy Bodies; 2) Alterations in the structure and distribution of NMDA glutamate receptors in Parkinson's disease, which may be responsible for the adverse effects of dopaminergic treatments used in this disease; and 3) the biology and physiology of the protein TorsinA, mutations of which cause early onset torsion dystonia. Our experimental approaches combine classic neuroanatomical methods with modern techniques of molecular and cell biology, using in situ hybridization, immunohistochemistry, laser capture microdissection, gene array profiling, animal models of disease, and in vitro systems.
Curriculum Vitae
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Publications
Dr. Standaert in Health System Directory
