Todd Eliot Golde MD PhD

Todd E. Golde, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Pharmacology and Neurology at Emory University School of Medicine. He also directs Emory’s Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases. Previously, he was the director of the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Florida, where he championed and facilitated neuroscience and neuromedicine research programs across the UF campus. He was also the founding director of the university’s Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease (CTRND), which he led until taking the helm at the MBI in December 2016. Additionally, he was the founding director of the NIH-funded 1Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) consortium of institutions and currently serves as an Associate Director of Emory’s ADRC.

Golde earned his undergraduate degree in biology and immunology from Amherst College and his medical degree and doctorate in pathology from Case Western Reserve University. He worked as a research associate at Case Western’s Institute of Pathology and as a postdoctoral fellow under a neuroscience training grant, serving on a lab team that produced a series of seminal papers laying the foundation for the amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease. He went on to complete a residency in clinical pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he served as chief resident. After a year on faculty at Penn, he joined Mayo Clinic Florida, where he rose to chair of the department of neuroscience, overseeing an extramural grant portfolio exceeding $10 million annually.

An internationally recognized expert in the scientific understanding of Alzheimer’s disease, Golde has published more than 350 papers, which have been cited over 50,000 times. His research has expanded beyond Alzheimer’s to include other neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, and stress-related disorders. In all his administrative roles, Dr. Golde has promoted a vision of closely integrating wet-bench laboratories with patient-based research activities.

Nationally, Golde has served on the medical and scientific advisory board for the Alzheimer’s Association and continues in that role for the BrightFocus Foundation, a nonprofit organization supporting research on Alzheimer’s disease, macular degeneration, and glaucoma. He has also served and continues to serve on state and NIH advisory boards related to Alzheimer’s disease. Through his scientific reviews and presentations at national and international conferences, he not only discusses scientific advances but also highlights the many challenges in combating the Alzheimer’s disease epidemic.

Among his awards, Golde has been honored with the Faculty Research Award for Basic Science from the University of Florida College of Medicine, the MetLife Award for medical research, the Alzheimer’s Association Zenith Award, the Thome Award in Alzheimer’s disease drug discovery research, and the Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award.