Carlos Cruchaga, PhD
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Affiliation(s):
Washington University School of Medicine
ORCID URL:
Areas of Interest:
Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson disease, genetics, quantitative traits, WES WGS, RNA-seq
Biography & Research:
Dr. Cruchaga first became interested in Alzheimer’s research after finishing his Ph.D. at the University of Navarra in Spain. He was inspired by the Human Genome Project, which began in 1990 and was completed in 2003. “I was fascinated by the Human Genome Project and its implication in human diseases. The genes causing Alzheimer’s disease in early-onset families were already identified, but not much was known about the genetic component of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. I was overwhelmed that such a devastating and important disease, in terms of impact on the population, had no cure at all. For other complex diseases, genetic findings were key to identifying and validating new treatments. Therefore, I wanted to investigate the potential impact that all the new knowledge from the Human Genome Project could have in Alzheimer’s disease.”
Dr. Cruchaga soon moved to Washington University in St. Louis, where he began searching for genes associated with Alzheimer’s risk in the laboratory of Dr. Alison Goate. By 2010, he had become an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry there—a position he holds today.
