Marc Diamond, M.D.
Director, Center for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases
Professor & Director

Download Curriculum Vitae

Marc Diamond, M.D., is a native of Berkeley, California. He graduated from Princeton University in 1987 with an A.B. in History. He entered the UCSF School of Medicine in 1987, and he carried out research on transcriptional regulation by the glucocorticoid receptor for two years with Keith Yamamoto, Ph.D. as a Howard Hughes Medical Student Research Fellow. Dr. Diamond received his M.D. from UCSF in 1993 where he also completed an internship, residency, and chief residency in Neurology in 1997. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Yamamoto until 2001, working on two polyglutamine diseases—spinobulbar muscular atrophy and Huntington’s disease.

Dr. Diamond joined the faculty of the Department of Neurology at UCSF from 2002-2009, before moving to Washington University in St. Louis in 2009, as the David Clayson Professor of Neurology. He joined the faculty of UT Southwestern Medical Center in 2014 as the founding director of the Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases. He is interested in neurodegenerative diseases linked to protein aggregation, and the role of prion mechanisms in the normal and abnormal physiology of protein amyloids.

Graduate School

Princeton University (1987), History

Medical School

University of California-San F (1993), Medicine

• Cell and Molecular Biology
• Neurodegenerative Diseases
• Neuroscience
• Prion Biology

Featured Publications

Seed-competent tau monomer initiates pathology in a tauopathy mouse model.

Mirbaha H, Chen D, Mullapudi V, Terpack SJ, White CL, Joachimiak LA, Diamond MI, J Biol Chem 2022 Jun 102163

RNA induces unique tau strains and stabilizes Alzheimer's disease seeds.

Zwierzchowski-Zarate AN, Mendoza-Oliva A, Kashmer OM, Collazo-Lopez JE, White CL, Diamond MI, J Biol Chem 2022 Jun 102132

The dual fates of exogenous tau seeds: lysosomal clearance vs. cytoplasmic amplification.

Kolay S, Vega AR, Dodd DA, Perez VA, Kashmer OM, White CL, Diamond MI, J Biol Chem 2022 May 102014

VCP suppresses proteopathic seeding in neurons.

Zhu J, Pittman S, Dhavale D, French R, Patterson JN, Kaleelurrrahuman MS, Sun Y, Vaquer-Alicea J, Maggiore G, Clemen CS, Buscher WJ, Bieschke J, Kotzbauer P, Ayala Y, Diamond MI, Davis AA, Weihl C, Mol Neurodegener 2022 Apr 17 1 30

Deep learning reveals disease-specific signatures of white matter pathology in tauopathies.

Vega AR, Chkheidze R, Jarmale V, Shang P, Foong C, Diamond MI, White CL, Rajaram S, Acta Neuropathol Commun 2021 Oct 9 1 170

Anatomic survey of seeding in Alzheimer's disease brains reveals unexpected patterns.

Stopschinski BE, Del Tredici K, Estill-Terpack SJ, Ghebremdehin E, Yu FF, Braak H, Diamond MI, Acta Neuropathol Commun 2021 Oct 9 1 164

Tau seeding in chronic traumatic encephalopathy parallels disease severity.

Kaufman SK, Svirsky S, Cherry JD, McKee AC, Diamond MI, Acta Neuropathol 2021 Oct

Tau strains shape disease.

Vaquer-Alicea J, Diamond MI, Joachimiak LA, Acta Neuropathol 2021 Jul 142 1 57-71

Ultrasensitive tau biosensor cells detect no seeding in Alzheimer's disease CSF.

Hitt BD, Vaquer-Alicea J, Manon VA, Beaver JD, Kashmer OM, Garcia JN, Diamond MI, Acta Neuropathol Commun 2021 05 9 1 99

Alzheimer's disease risk modifier genes do not affect tau aggregate uptake, seeding or maintenance in cell models.

Kolay S, Diamond MI, FEBS Open Bio 2020 09 10 9 1912-1920

• Distinguished Chair
  Brain Injury and Repair (2014)
• Scholar-Innovator Award
  Harrington (2012)
• Foundation Award
  Ruth K. Broad (2010)
• Endowed Chair
  David Clayson Professor of Neurology (2009)
• Leadership Award
  Huntington's Disease Society of America (2007)
• Sandler Opportunity Award
  (2007)