Dr. Town received his Ph.D. in neuroscience with distinction from the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, in 2002. He then completed post-doctoral work and a junior faculty position at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Immunobiology, Yale University in 2008. That same year, he was appointed associate professor at both Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was the inaugural holder of the Ben Winters Endowed Chair in Regenerative Medicine from 2008–2013. 

Dr. Town was promoted to full professor in 2013 and relocated to the University of Southern California that same year. He has received several prestigious career awards, including the Julie Martin Mid-career Award in Aging Research from the American Federation for Aging Research/Ellison Medical Foundation and the Zenith Fellows Award from the Alzheimer’s Association. 

The unifying theme of Dr. Town’s work is that the Alzheimer brain overcompensates to pro-inflammatory signals by trying to shut down the innate immune system, and that “rebalancing” innate immunity is the way forward to an Alzheimer therapy. Specifically, his approach is to inhibit suppressors of innate immunity to promote amyloid clearance and restore cognitive function.