Clemens Scherzer, MD

Clemens Scherzer, M.D. is a physician-scientist and the Stephen & Denise Adams Professor of Neurology, and Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine. He heads the Stephen & Denise Adams Center for Parkinson’s Disease Research of Yale School of Medicine, an inter- departmental center building the future of precision medicine for Parkinson’s through genomics and AI, and the American Parkinson Disease Association Center for Advanced Research. In his clinical practice he is the Academic Chief of the Division of Movement Disorders and directs the Yale Harvard Biomarkers Study (YHBS). Prior to his recruitment to Yale in 2024, Scherzer was Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, where he headed the Neurogenomics Lab (2003-2023) and developed the inter-divisional Brigham & Women’s Hospital Precision Neurology Program (2017-2023). Under his leadership, two US institutions – first Brigham & Women’s Hospital (since 2017-) and then Yale (2024- ) – were nationally recognized for the first time in their histories as research centers of excellence by the American Parkinson Disease Association.

Scherzer uses genomics and big data to develop a new, predictive, preventive precison medicine for Parkinson's disease. His interdisciplinary lab includes bioinformatics engineers, geneticists, biologists, and clinicians. The lab's goal is to build a Parkinson AI engine that matches drugs and tests to a patient based on a search of his entire biology. This transformative research is powered by the Yale Harvard Biomarkers Study, with more than 4,000 participants one of the largest longitudinal biobanks for Parkinson's in the world. To understand how the human genome encodes human brain cells in health and disease, Scherzer is leading the $15 million Parkinson Cell Atlas in 5D with two awards from the ASAP Foundation. This initiative is decoding the genetic software of millions of brain cells and searches for glitches that cause disease. He is a pioneer in precision neurology, whose research led to the discovery of genetic drivers, biomarkers, and therapeutic targets, and clinical trials.

Scherzer, a graduate of the University of Vienna Medical School, completed internship and neurology residency at Emory University (under Lasker Laurate Mahlon DeLong, MD, PhD and Allan Levey, MD, PhD), and movement disorders and genomics fellowship training at Harvard. He received the Dr. Paul Beeson and the George C. Cotzias Memorial Awards, and was awarded an honorary master degree from Harvard University. He contributed to the launch of a foundational network of Parkinson’s biobanks and the Accelerating Medicines Partnership-PD in the US, which form the national backbone for precision neurology research for PD. He co-founded the Harvard Biomarkers Study (HBS) in 2008 and contributed to the launch of the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s PPMI (on the founding Advisory Committee), and the NIH’s PDBP (as inaugural Co-Chair). He served on the Parkinson Vision Setting Panel of the U.S. Department of Defense, and is on the Steering Committee of the NINDS Parkinson's Disease Biomarkers Program and the Scientific Advisory Board of the American Parkinson Disease Foundation. He serves on the Editorial Boards of Neurogenetics and Biomarkers in Medicine. His research has been featured in international and national news media such as Scientific American, Washington Post, Bloomberg, US News & World Reports, and NOVA Next.

Research from the Scherzer laboratory has led to the discovery of genetic drivers (e.g. distinct types of GBA mutations in 10% of patients; Annals of Neurology, 2016; Lancet Neurology, 2017), biomarkers, and therapeutic mechanisms (e.g. beta2-adrenoreceptor as regulator of the alpha-synuclein gene; Science, 2017), and is inspiring clinical trials. Scherzer revealed that the genetics of disease progression --- the main driver of patients’ wellbeing and clinical trials --- and the genetics of susceptibility importantly differ (Nature Genetics, 2021). His landmark systems transcriptomics study on defects in PGC1alpha-regulated bioenergetics genes in prodromal Parkinson's neuropathology (Science Translational Medicine, 2010) was highlighted as “a glimpse into the future of biomedicine”. To decode how the human genome codes our brain cells in health and disease, Scherzer is mapping a Parkinson Cell Atlas in 5D (PD5D) using high-resolution spatial, multiome, sub-cellular, and single-cell genomics combined with single-cell expression Quantitative Trait Locus analysis in millions of brain cells and thousand brains. While virtually everything we know about the human brain is based on just the 1.2% of the human genome that encodes proteins, his group found that actually as much as 64% of the genome are actively transcribed in our brain cells. Scherzer believes that this massive, hidden RNA software underlies the complexity of the human brain and neuropsychiatric disease (e.g. Nature Neuroscience, 2018; Nature Communications, 2023). For Alzheimer’s disease, he made the seminal discovery of SORL1 (LR11, SORLA) gene activity changes (Archives of Neurology, 2004), which is widely recognized as a top Alzheimer’s gene and “Amyloid-beta traffic cop.”