Arnold Kriegstein

Dr. Arnold Kriegstein is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, and the John Bowes Distinguished Professor in Stem Cell and Tissue Biology and Founding Director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Kriegstein’s research focuses on how neural stem and progenitor cells in the embryonic brain produce neurons and ways to translate this information for cell-based therapies to treat diseases of the nervous system. His lab found that radial glial cells are neuronal stem cells in the developing brain and also identified a second type of precursor cell produced by radial glial cells responsible for generating specific neuronal subtypes. He has been characterizing the progenitor cells within the developing human brain to determine the genetic profiles of specific progenitor populations, and to explore how these cells contribute to the enormous expansion of neuron number that characterizes the human cerebral cortex. Dr. Kriegstein joined the Neurology Department at UCSF in 2004 and has held academic appointments at Stanford University, Yale University, and Columbia University. He received his B.A. from Yale University and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from New York University in 1977 where his thesis advisor was Dr. Eric Kandel. He subsequently completed Residency training in Neurology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. Dr. Kriegstein has received numerous awards including the Stanford University William M. Hume Faculty Scholar and two Javits Awards from the NIH. He was elected to the National Institute of Medicine in 2008.