Lorenz Studer

Lorenz Studer received a Candidate Medical degree (1987) from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and an M.D. (1991) and a graduate degree (1994) from the University of Bern, Switzerland. He held several research positions (1994–1999) at both the University of Bern and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke within the National Institutes of Health before joining the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he is currently founding director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology and a member of the Developmental Biology Program. Lorenz Studer is a stem cell biologist pioneering the large-scale generation of dopaminergic neurons for transplantation, a breakthrough that could provide treatment for Parkinson’s disease and, eventually, other neurodegenerative diseases. Parkinson’s, caused by the death of dopamine-generating cells in the brain, affects half a million people in the United States and up to five million worldwide. At present, there is no cure.