Giuseppe Faraco, M.D., Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Research in Neuroscience at the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.

Dr. Faraco obtained an M.D. from the University of Florence, Italy, in 2004. He completed a residency in Clinical Toxicology at the University of Florence, followed by a Ph.D. in neuro-pharmacology at the same University in 2010, where his early research focused on the role of histone acetylation in the pathogenesis of cerebral ischemia.

After joining Weill Cornell Medicine in 2008 as a Post-Doctoral Fellow, Dr. Faraco started to investigate the mechanisms of cerebrovascular dysfunction induced by arterial hypertension, under the mentorship of Dr. Costantino Iadecola. His research provided evidence that perivascular macrophages, innate immune cells closely associate with cerebral arterioles, are critical for impairing arteriolar function and cognitive function in hypertension.

Since joining the faculty at Weill Cornell in 2014 as Assistant Professor, Dr. Faraco’s laboratory has continued to pursue the mechanisms by which vascular risk factors lead to cognitive impairment. He recently showed that a diet rich in sodium has deleterious effects on the cerebral endothelium which lead to cognitive impairment through a novel gut-brain axis involving Th17 lymphocytes, elevated circulating levels of IL17 and inhibitory phosphorylation of endothelial nitric oxide synthase.