Dr. Kelleher is currently a principal investigator in the CHGR, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, and Staff Neurologist at MGH. He is a graduate of MIT, Harvard and Stanford, and completed clinical training in internal medicine and neurology at MGH. As an MD-PhD student at Stanford, his research with Roger Kornberg led to the discovery of the Mediator of eukaryotic transcriptional activation. His subsequent research with Susumu Tonegawa in the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT established an essential role for translational regulation in the establishment of long-lasting forms of synaptic plasticity and memory. His work further defined the essential signaling mechanisms connecting synaptic activation to the translational machinery.
In broad terms, Dr. Kelleher’s laboratory studies the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying cognition and cognitive disorders. Current research projects are directed toward defining the molecular mechanisms regulating local protein synthesis in neurons, and understanding how these translational mechanisms contribute to normal cognition and the establishment and modification of synaptic connectivity in the mammalian brain. Examination of the role of defective translational control in specific neuropsychiatric disorders is a closely related effort. In a complementary line of research, the laboratory is also investigating the molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for neurodegenerative dementia, with a focus on Alzheimer’s disease. Due to the complexity of these problems, which span the gap from molecules to behavior, the laboratory employs a multidisciplinary approach, including conditional and inducible genetic manipulations in mice, biochemical, molecular and cell biological analysis, slice electrophysiology and mouse behavior.
Dr. Kelleher’s clinical interests focus on cognitive disorders, with an emphasis on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
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