M. Leissring, Ph.D.

Dr. Malcolm A. Leissring is an award-winning biomedical researcher with extensive expertise in the molecular pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes mellitus. He holds a baccalaureate degree from UC Berkeley, a master’s degree from San Francisco State University, a Ph.D. from UC Irvine, and conducted his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Dennis J. Selkoe, M.D., one of the world’s leading researchers in Alzheimer’s disease. He was a founding faculty member at Scripps Florida, the newest campus of The Scripps Research Institute, served on the faculty of the department of neuroscience at Mayo Clinic Florida, and currently works in the University of California, Irvine’s Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND).

Dr. Leissring’s research interests range from drug discovery and medicinal chemistry to cell and molecular biology to animal model development. Of note, he pioneered the development of pharmacological inhibitors of insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE), which have demonstrated utility for the treatment of diabetes (Maianti et al., Nature 2014) and wound healing (Suire et al., PLoS ONE 2018). His research has been funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and numerous private foundations, and he has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles in top-tier scientific journals. Dr. Leissring has received awards from many prestigious organizations, including the Alzheimer’s Association, the American Diabetes Association, the Ellison Medical Foundation, and the American Federation for Aging Research.