Todd Golde

Todd E. Golde, MD, PhD, is executive director of the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute of the University of Florida, where he oversees, champions and facilitates neuroscience and neuromedicine research programs across the UF campus. A professor of neuroscience, Golde joined the UF faculty in 2009 and became founding director of the university’s Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease (CTRND), which he led until taking the helm at the MBI in December 2016. He is also director of the 1Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center consortium of institutions.

Golde earned his undergraduate degree in biology and immunology from Amherst College and his medical degree and doctorate in pathology from Case Western Reserve University. He worked as a research associate at Case Western’s Institute of Pathology and as a postdoctoral fellow under a neuroscience training grant, serving on a lab team that produced a series of seminal papers that laid the foundation for the amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease. He went on to complete a residency in clinical pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and served as chief resident. After a year on faculty at Penn, he joined Mayo Clinic Florida, where he rose to chair of the department of neuroscience and oversaw an extramural grant portfolio exceeding $10 million a year.

An internationally known expert in the scientific understanding of Alzheimer’s disease, Golde has published more than 230 papers that have been cited more than 29,000 times. He has expanded his leading-edge research to include other neurodegenerative diseases, cancer and even malaria. As director the CTRND, he recruited multiple new faculty members, and together, they have authored or co-authored more than 200 papers. Now, as MBI director, Golde is furthering his vision to closely tie wet-bench laboratories with patient-based research activities, promoting ongoing interaction between clinical and basic investigators to turn new discoveries into diagnoses and treatments.

Nationally, Golde is a member of the medical and scientific advisory board for the Alzheimer’s Association and the BrightFocus Foundation, a nonprofit group that supports research of Alzheimer’s disease, macular degeneration and glaucoma. IN the past he has served on state and NIH advisory boards related to Alzheimer’s disease.

Among his awards, Golde has been honored with the faculty research award for basic science from the UF College of Medicine, the MetLife Award for medical research, the Alzheimer’s Association Zenith Award, the Thome Award in Alzheimer’s disease drug discovery research and the Ellison Medical Foundation senior scholar award.