Joel Blanchard, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai


Dr. Blanchard is an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai. His research aims to understand how genetics, diet, and traumatic brain injury influence the susceptibility of the human brain to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease. His research combines engineering, stem cell biology, and neuroscience to create new technology and approaches for investigating and therapeutically targeting the human brain. Dr. Blanchard completed his post-doctoral training at MIT in the laboratory of Dr. Li-Huei Tsai where he developed in vitro models of the blood-brain barrier and myelination and applied these models to discover key mechanisms underlying vascular and white matter pathologies in Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Blanchard received doctoral training at the Scripps Research Institute in California in the laboratory of Dr. Kristin Baldwin where he developed technology for rapidly generating human sensory neurons. At Scripps, he also developed a combinatorial antibody screening platform to identify antibodies capable of reprogramming adult cells back to an embryonic state. Prior to doctoral studies, Dr. Blanchard completed a master’s at Harvard University working in Drs. Lee Rubin and Kevin Eggan where he performed chemical and genetic screens that identify small molecules for neurodegenerative diseases and reprogramming. Dr. Blanchard’s work has led to several patents and awards including the ISSCR merit award, Glenn Foundation Post-doctoral Fellowship, and a CIRM pre-doctoral fellowship.

http://labs.neuroscience.mssm.edu/project/blanchard-lab/

@JoelWBlanchard1

Funded Research

These projects were made possible from Cure Alzheimer's Fund support.