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A Welcome from the Chair
Welcome to the Department of Neurology of the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry. Rochester’s neurology department has a long tradition as one of the premier neurology training programs in the United States. First established by Dr. Robert J. Joynt in 1966 - 1986 and then expanded between 1987 - 2007 by Dr. Robert C. Griggs. The Department now has over 140 faculty. This includes 87 full-time academic faculty, 37 faculty in other departments with secondary appointments in neurology, and 16 faculty at other institutions with adjunct appointments in neurology. In 2010 Academic Year, extramural research support totaled $36.8 million, and the department has consistently ranked within the top 6 nationally in NIH research funding. Yet rather than rest on its laurels, the department is again aggressively expanding further, with an aggressive program of recruitment anticipated over the next 5 years, as part of the University of Rochester’s strategic plan for 2009-13.
By way of introducing the department’s structure and competencies, and both its basic and clinical program highlights, please consider the following:
Our scope and structure
Neurology is composed of the following major divisions, each led by nationally and internationally prominent senior investigators. Virtually all of these specialty units enjoy national as well as regional referral bases.
- Cell and Gene Therapy
- Epilepsy and Clinical Neurophysiology
- Experimental Therapeutics Program
- General Neurology Unit
- Geriatric Neurology and Memory Disorders
- Movement Disorders
- Multiple Sclerosis and Myelin Disorders
- Neurogenetics
- Neurological Education and Training
- Neuromuscular Disease Center
- Neuro-Oncology
- Palliative Care Neurology
- Pediatric Neurology
- Sleep Disorders
- Stroke and Vascular Neurology
- URMC Neurology of Highland Hospital
- URMC Neurology at Rochester General Hospital
The department has close associations with our colleagues in the Department of Neurosurgery, and in the Divisions of Neuropathology and Neuroradiology. In addition, the department has close interactions with affiliated laboratories and research centers in both the medical center and adjacent university campus that include:
- Center for Translational Neuromedicine (Goldman, Goldman)
- Center for Neurovascular Disease (Zlokovic)
- Center for Neural Development and Disease (Gelbard)
- Center for Human Experimental Therapeutics (Kieburtz)
- Stem Cell Institute and Regenerative Medicine (Noble)
- Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy (Paige)
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (Newport, Aslin)
- Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology (Oakes, McDermott)
Our future
The department is in the midst of an exciting and aggressive expansion, with a university-wide consolidation of basic and clinical neuroscience disciplines, for the shared purpose of achieving an integrated, translationally-oriented program in neuromedicine. Our goal within neurology is to establish a fully vertically integrated department, in which advances in basic cellular and molecular neurobiology are rapidly advanced to preclinical assessment, and then translated bench to bedside with clinical trials that may be designed and executed internally. The department is already a premier center for training in clinical neurology, as well as in both basic and translational neurobiology and experimental therapeutics; we now hope to combine and leverage these strengths, so as to speed our progress towards developing fundamentally new treatments for neurological disease, while making Rochester a national center for these efforts. I invite you to become more familiar with our department, and to participate in our mission.
Department of Neurology 5 Year Strategic Plan
Steve Goldman, MD, PhD
Edward and Alma Vollertsen Rykenboer Professor and Chairman, Department of Nerpediatrics
Neurologist-in-Chief, Strong Memorial and Highland Hospitals
