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Pierluigi Gambetti, M.D.ProfessorMailing Address: email: Pierluigi.Gambetti@Case.edu |
Biography
| 1952 | Undergraduate School, Liceo Classico Imola (Bologna) Italy Maturita |
| 1959 | M.D., Magna Cum Laude, Humanities, University of Bologna, School of Medicine |
| 1961-1963 | Resident, Neurology, Neurological Hospital of the University of Bologna School of Medicine |
| 1963-1969 | Fellowships: Neuropathology, Institut Bunge, Antwerp Belgium; Institute of Pathology, University of Rome; Department of Pathology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine |
| 1969-1972 | Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine |
| 1972-1977 | Associate Professor, Departments of Pathology and Neurology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine |
| 1977-present | Professor and Director, Division of Neuropathology, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals of Cleveland |
Research
The primary focus of my research is prion diseases. The main objective is the understanding of the fine
changes leading to the disease. The approach is multidisciplinary. My group analyzes the human prion
disease and try to establish accurate anatomo-clinical correlations. Special attention is devoted to
the understanding of correlations between pathological changes, such as spongiosis, and the
distribution, amount and type of the abnormal prion protein present in the brain of affected individuals.
For these studies we take advantage of the
National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center of the USA which is located at CWRU within
our laboratories and provide an invaluable source of cases of prion disease. We analyze in vitro the
chemicophysical characteristics of the prion protein and the mechanisms of conversion of the normal to
the abnormal prion protein conformer. Finally, we used transfected cells and transgenic animals to
investigate in detail the various abnormalities of the prion protein metabolism related to the presence
of mutations in the prion protein gene leading to disease.
Publications
Parchi P, Giese A, Carpellari S, Brown P, Schultz-Schaeffer W, Windl O, Zerr I, Budka H, Kopp N, Piccardo
P, Poser S, Rojiani A, Streichemberger N, Julien J. Vital C, Ghetti B, Gambetti P, Kretzschmar H
(1999). Classification of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease based on molecular and phenotypic analysis of
300 subjects. Ann Neurol 46, 224-233.
Gambetti P, Parchi P (1999). Insomnia in Prion Diseases: Sporadic and Familal. New Engl J Med 340, 1675- 1677.
Gambetti P, Goldfarb L, Gabizon R, Montagna P, Lugaresi E, Piccardo P, Petersen RB, Parchi P, Chen SG, Capellari S, Ghetti B (1999). Inherited prion diseases. In: Prion Biology and Diseases, Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory Press, pp. 509-583.
Zanusso G, Petersen RB, Jin T, Kanoush R, Sharma Y, Ferrari S, Gambetti P, Singh N (1999). Proteasomal degradation and N-terminal protease resistance of the codon 145 mutant prion protein. J Biol Chem 274, 23396-23404.
Parchi P, Zou W, Wang W, Brown P, Capellari S, Ghetti B, Kopp N, Schulz-Schaeffer WJ, Kretzschmar HA, Ironside JW, Gambetti P, Chen SG (2000). Genetic influence on the structural variations of the abnormal prion protein. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 97, 10168-10172.
Bütefisch CM, Gambetti P, Cervenakova L, Park KY, Hallett M, Goldfarb LG (2000). Inherited prion encephalopathy associated with the novel PRNP H187R mutation. A clinical study. Neurology 55, 517-522.
Russo C, Schettini G, Saido TC, Hulette C, Lippa C, Lannfelt L, Ghetti B, Gambetti P, Tabaton M, Teller JK (2000). Presenilin-1 mutations in Alzheimer's disease. Nature 405, 531-532.
Capellari S, Parchi P, Russo CM, Sanford J, Sy M-S, Gambetti P, Petersen RB (2000). Effect of the E200K mutation on prion protein metabolism: Comparative study of a cell model and human brain. Am J Pathol 157, 613-622.