Professor George Perry

George Perry, Ph.D., HonD, FAAAS, IMBO, RAC, AMC, ACL, FLS, FSB, CBiol, FRCPath, RSC, FMSA, CChem, CSci, FRSA, FRMS is Professor of Biology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He is also Adjunct Professor of Pathology and Neurosciences, Case Western Reserve University and Affiliate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Alaska. He is recognized in the field of Alzheimer’s disease research particularly for his work on oxidative stress.
 
George is distinguished as one of the top 20 Alzheimer’s disease researchers with over 900 publications, one of the top 100 most-cited scientists in Neuroscience & Behavior, one of the top 25 scientists in Free Radical research, and one of the top 10 Alzheimer’s disease researchers.
 
He served as President for the American Association of Neuropathologists. He also serves as editor for several journals including Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology and Microscopy Research and Technique, is on the editorial board of many journals including American Journal of Pathology and Journal of Biological Chemistry, and is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
 
George’s studies are focused on the mechanism of formation and physiological consequences of the cytopathology of Alzheimer disease. He has shown that oxidative damage is the initial cytopathology in Alzheimer’s disease. He is working to determine the sequence of events leading to neuronal oxidative damage and the source of the increased oxygen radicals.
 
His current studies focus on (i) the mechanism for RNA-based redox metal binding; (ii) the consequences of RNA oxidation on protein synthesis rate and fidelity; (iii) the role of redox active metals in mediating prooxidant and antioxidant properties; (iv) the signal transduction pathways altered in Alzheimer’s disease that allow neurons to evade apoptosis; and (v) mechanism of phosphorylation control of oxidative damage to neurofilament proteins.
 
George coedited Alzheimer’s Disease: A Century of Scientific And Clinical Research and coauthored Widespread Peroxynitrite-Mediated Damage in Alzheimer’s Disease, RNA Oxidation Is a Prominent Feature of Vulnerable Neurons in Alzheimer’s Disease, Mitochondrial Abnormalities in Alzheimer’s Disease, Evidence that the β-Amyloid Plaques of Alzheimer’s Disease Represent the Redox-silencing and Entombment of Aβ by Zinc, Ubiquitin is Detected in Neurofibrillary Tangles and Senile Plaque Neurites of Alzheimer Disease Brains, and Parkinson’s Disease Is Associated with Oxidative Damage to Cytoplasmic DNA and RNA in Substantia Nigra Neurons.
 
George earned his BA in Zoology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1974 and his Ph.D. in Marine Biology under David Epel at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1979. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Cell Biology in the laboratories of Drs. Bill Brinkley and Joseph Bryan at Baylor College of Medicine. He performed the majority of his research at Case Western Reserve University and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1998.
 
He was elected a Member of Iberoamerican Molecular Biology Organization in 2008 and a foreign corresponding member of the Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences in 2009. He received an honorary doctorate from Universidad Arturo Prat, Chile in 2007. He became a corresponding member of Academia Mexicana de Ciencias in 2010 and for the Academia de Ciêncas de Lisboa in 2011. He received the Distinguished Professional Mentor Award, Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Sciences in 2010 and the Senior Investigator Award for the International College of Geriatric Psychoneuropharmacology in 2011. He is Member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. He was elected a Fellow to the Linnean Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Royal College of Pathologists, and the Microscopy Society of America — all in 2011.