Jonathan Glass

Jonathan D. Glass is Professor of Neurology and Pathology, and the Director of the Emory ALS Center in the Department of Neurology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is widely known for his research on the pathogenesis and prevention of nerve degeneration in neurological diseases, and for his work in human and experimental neuropathology. His laboratory currently focuses on the causes of nerve degeneration in animal models of neurological diseases, including the development of novel therapeutic interventions to prevent the death of nerve fibers. Dr. Glass is a passionate advocate for bringing science to the clinic, and involving patients in the study of their own disease. Collaboration with ALS patients, he is exploring the biological markers of disease activity and progression. He is also the principle investigator for the current first-in-human, phase 1 study of spinal cord injection of neural stem cells for patients with ALS (funded by Neuralstem, Inc) – which is the subject of his TEDMED talk. Dr. Glass is an active clinician who has been cited each year since 2001 as one of "America's Top Doctors" (Castle Connelly) and since 2005 as one of the very few neurologists in "Atlanta's Top Doctors" (Atlanta Magazine). He is also a teacher and mentor to young physicians and served as the director of Emory's Neurology residency program from 2001-2006. Dr. Glass received his undergraduate degree from Middlebury College (Vermont) and his MD from the University of Vermont. He trained in Neurology and Neuropathology at Johns Hopkins, where he was a faculty member until moving to Emory in 1996.