Leadership
Director: Stanley Prusiner
Associate Director for Academic Affairs: Jason Gestwicki
Associate Director of Scientific Programs: David Westaway
Principal Investigators
Drug Discovery
Medicinal Chemistry: Nick Paras
Prion Biology: Jacob Ayers
Administration
Animal Facility Director: Ming Lui
Chief Administrative Officer: Greta Boesel
Human Resources and Operations: Thompson Chambers
Organization
The IND is a highly collaborative environment. The shared interests and complementary expertise of the IND faculty and their teams have sparked numerous joint projects, grants, and publications. The multi-disciplinary backgrounds cover a broad spectrum including neuroscience, computational biology, synthetic and medicinal chemistry, chemical biology and biochemistry, structural biology, cell biology, functional genomics, and mouse and human iPSC models of disease. IND faculty include many world leaders in cutting-edge technologies, such as cryo-EM, CRISPR screening, and artificial intelligence. They are also pioneers of neurodegeneration research with deep knowledge of the field, notably IND founder and director Dr. Stanley Prusiner, who discovered the prion principle and for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Interactions between different labs at the IND are promoted by weekly seminars that include presentations by external speakers, lab overview talks by faculty, and research-in-progress presentations by trainees. Numerous trainees have joint appointments with two IND labs, further cementing the collaborative nature of IND research.