One of the world's preeminent Alzheimer's researchers will visit West Virginia next month to recognize and be recognized by the program that shaped his future as a scientist nearly 40 years earlier.
Dr. Rudolph Tanzi is the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy chaired professor of Neurology at Harvard University, and the vice chairman of Neurology and director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also an alumnus of the National Youth Science Camp, an international science exposure program based in West Virginia where, in 1976, he heard his first scientific lecture as a recent high school graduate from Rhode Island.
"My first exposure to scientific lectures was at NYSC. That was when I truly knew I wanted to become a scientist," Tanzi said.
Tanzi has been named the 2015 Alumnus of the Year by the National Youth Science Foundation and will be presented with the award at 7 p.m. on Dec. 2 in the Geary Auditorium at the University of Charleston. Tanzi will discuss his current research during a talk at the event, which will focus on the genetic and environmental factors that increase a person's risk for Alzheimer's disease, as well as the emerging therapeutic strategies for treating and preventing the degenerative brain disease.
Tanzi co-discovered three of the first Alzheimer's disease genes and has identified several others through the Alzheimer's Genome Project, a program he directs. Tanzi also discovered the gene that causes Wilson's disease, and participated in the discovery of several other neurological disease genes. Most recently, he has used Alzheimer's genes to create a three-dimensional neural culture system derived from human cells that allows scientists to observe the development of Alzheimer's plaque and tangle pathology for the first time - a discovery that has dramatically increased the speed of drug recovery and reduced the costs. This discovery, dubbed "Alzheimer's-in-a-Dish," was granted the 2015 Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award.
The National Youth Science Camp was created in 1963 as part of the state's centennial celebration, according to Lynne Schwabe, director of the National Youth Science Foundation. The camp has produced several renowned science and technology professionals, including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Wesley Bush, CEO of global aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman, and David Thompson, CEO of Orbital ATK, a company that contracts and builds for NASA. Many have visited, conducted lectures and taught during the camp, allowing campers the chance to form professional relationships with working scientists.
"It gives them a mentoring network," she said. "Not only do they form the connections with their fellow campers that will last throughout their lives, so that in 40 years, when they're working on an astronomy project...they can call up their compatriot in Bolivia and say 'I know you're working on this problem. Let's share' - they network like that, but they also have the mentoring network of the alums who visit camp."
The NYSC is an honors program that brings two top students from every state in the U.S. and others from around the world to West Virginia to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics with preeminent scientists for a month in the summer.
"It was a West Virginia-born concept," Schwabe said. "I would say we're the premiere science camp not only because of our emphasis on what we do - we're not a teaching program, we're an exposure program - and because of the international component, and because we're really emphasize the ethical responsibility that scientists have as they continue through their careers. We heavily emphasize leadership, and it's a little different than just saying 'let's go study math all day' - not that there's anything wrong with that, of course."
Tanzi has authored a New York Times best-selling book, "Super Brain" and has an upcoming book to be released this month, "Super Genes," both co-authored with Dr. Deepak Chopra. Tanzi has published nearly 500 research papers and has received the Metropolitan Life Foundation Award and Potamkin Prize. Most recently, he was included on the 2014 list of TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World. He was named by GQ magazine as a "Rock Star of Science," and also named as one of the 100 Most Influential Harvard Alumni.
To register for Tanzi's lecture, visit http://tanzi.nysc.org.
Reach Lydia Nuzum at lydia.nuzum@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5189 or follow @lydianuzum on Twitter.