Robert Bowser

Chief Scientific Officer of the Barrow Neurological Institute and St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, AZ. Also a Professor and Chair of the Department of Translational Neuroscience at the Barrow. Director of the Gregory W. Fulton ALS and Neuromuscular Disease Research Center at the Barrow Neurological Institute. Co-founder of a Pittsburgh based biotechnology company, Knopp Biosciences, that is focused on therapeutics for neurologic diseases. Founder of Iron Horse Diagnostics and nVector, Phoenix based biotechnology companies focused on diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers and AAV vector based gene therapies for neurologic disorders.

Dr. Bowser is an internationally recognized leader in ALS research, contributing pioneering efforts to discover and validate biomarkers for ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases. These biomarkers have been instrumental as diagnostic biomarkers of disease and predictors of disease progression. They are also used to evaluate the effectiveness of drug treatments in clinical trials. Additional research in the Bowser Laboratory includes exploring the mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration, developing new technologies for the delivery of drugs into the central nervous system, and defining the spatial expression of genes relative to neuropathology within human tissue samples. Dr. Bowser is the founder of two biotechnology companies and owner of multiple patents around his scientific discoveries.

As chief scientific officer of Barrow Neurological Institute and St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, Dr. Bowser oversees all research efforts and defines research directions for the institution. Dr. Bowser is also the co-director of a national biorepository of biofluid samples from ALS patients and of a national ALS post-mortem tissue bank. Dr. Bowser participates in many clinical research studies and clinical trials to translate research findings from the bench to patients. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Sheila Essey Award, which is the highest international award for ALS research.