Thomas Kukar, PhD

Dr. Thomas Kukar received his B.S. in Microbiology & Cell Science and a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry, both from the University of Florida. His post-doctoral fellowship was at the Mayo Clinic in the Laboratory of Todd Golde, M.D., Ph.D. in the Department of Neuroscience, where he studied the role of the Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) and the amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptide in AD pathogenesis. He played a key role in the development of gamma-secretase modulators (GSMs) as potential drugs for AD. Following his post-doc, he was promoted to an Associate Consultant and Assistant Professor of Molecular Neuroscience in the College of Medicine at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Kukar left Mayo Clinic and started his independent research laboratory in 2010 at Emory University in the Department of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018. He has received a number of awards including the Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease Conference Junior Faculty Award, the National Institutes of Health’s Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00), and the Charleston Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease (CCAD), Outstanding Early Career Investigator in Alzheimer’s Disease Award. Dr. Kukar’s research goals are to understand the causes of age-associated neurodegenerative diseases with a long-term goal to develop treatments. His laboratory studies Alzheimer’s disease (AD), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The research in Dr. Kukar’s lab has been funded by the BrightFocus foundation, the Alzheimer’s Association, the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, The Bluefield Project to Cure Frontotemporal Dementia, and the NIH. In his limited free time, he likes to play guitar, cycle around Atlanta, go see live music, and go hiking and camping.