Khalid Iqbal PhD

Khalid Iqbal is Professor and Chairman, Department of Neurochemistry, at the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities, Staten Island, New York. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1969 from the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K. Dr. Iqbal was the first to describe in 1974 the bulk isolation and protein composition of neurofibrillary tangles/paired helical filaments (PHF) from Alzheimer disease brains. In 1986 he, along with Dr. Inge Grundke-Iqbal, discovered that the PHF protein and the microtubule-associated protein tau are the same and that tau in PHF is hyperphosphorylated. Their search for an upstream-to-tau-pathology event led them to neurotrophic factors. In 1999 they discovered that CNTF could neutralize the FGF-2-mediated tau hyperphosphorylation in adult rat hippocampal neuroprogenitor cells and then, in 2003, they demonstrated that the pharmacologic enhancement of the dentate gyrus neurogenesis could improve the cognitive performance in adult rats. These pioneering studies led Drs. Iqbal and Grundke-Iqbal to the development of CNTF peptidergic compounds and a novel therapeutic approach that involved shifting the balance from neurodegeneration to the regeneration of the brain. They have shown that the CNTF peptidergic compounds can rescue cognitive impairment by rescuing the neurogenesis and the neuronal plasticity deficits in rodent models of familial and sporadic Alzheimer disease and Down syndrome.