Costantino Iadecola

Dr. Iadecola is a clinician-scientist who is an internationally recognized expert in the field of cerebrovascular diseases and dementia. Dr. Iadecola received an MD degree from the University of Rome, Italy, and completed Neurology Residencies both at the University of Rome and at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, New York, NY.

After completing his training, Dr. Iadecola joined the Department of Neurology of the University of Minnesota, where he rose through the academic ranks serving as Professor and Vice-Chair for Research. In 2001, Dr. Iadecola was recruited back to Cornell as the G. C. Cotzias Distinguished Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience, and Director of the Division of Neurobiology. In 2012 Dr. Iadecola was appointed Anne Parrish Titzell Professor of Neurology and Director of the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, a new Department at Weill Cornell focused on basic and translational neuroscience research.

Dr. Iadecola’s research focuses on the basic mechanisms of neurovascular function and on the cellular and molecular alterations underlying ischemic brain injury, neurodegeneration and cognitive impairment. A pioneer in establishing the concept of Neurovascular Unit, Dr. Iadecola has championed the involvement of neurovascular dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases, and the role of innate immunity and the microbiome in ischemic brain injury. He is active in several national and international research organizations and funding agencies, including the NIH, the American Heart Association (AHA) and the Alzheimer’s Association. He has been President (Chair) of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Fondation Leducq and is an advisor to the several research consortia in the US and Europe. Dr. Iadecola has served as Editor or Editorial Board member for a number of journals including: Stroke, Journal of Neuroscience, Circulation research, and the Annals of Neurology.

Dr. Iadecola has received the McHenry Award from the American Academy of Neurology, the Louis Sklarow Memorial Award, the Established Investigator Award (AHA), two Jacob Javits Awards from NINDS/NIH (1999, 2015), the Willis Award, the highest honor in stroke research bestowed by the AHA, and the Zenith Fellow Award from the Alzheimer’s Association in recognition of his work on the role of vascular factors in Alzheimer’s dementia. In 2015 Dr. Iadecola was awarded the Excellence Award in Hypertension Research by the Hypertension Council of the AHA for his studies on the role of high blood pressure in promoting both vascular cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease. In 2015 he was elected to the Association of American Physicians and in 2019 was honored as Distinguished Scientist by the AHA. He is the principal investigator of several NIH grants. Since 2018, Clarivate Analytics (Web of Science) has listed Dr. Iadecola as one of world’s “Highly Cited Researchers” for ranking in the top one percent of the most-cited authors in the field of neuroscience and behavioral sciences.