Neurodegenerative Disorders Laboratory

Chairman of Neurology and Neuroscience/Neurologist-in-Chief

New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill
Medical College of Cornell University

Dr. M. Flint Beal is an internationally recognized authority on neurodegenerative disorders. He is the Anne Parrish Titzell Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology and Neuroscience at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Director of the Neurology service at the New York Presbyterian Cornell Campus. Dr. Beal received his medical degree from the University of Virginia in 1976 and did his internship and first year residency in Medicine at New York-Cornell before completing his residency in Neurology at The Massachusetts General Hospital. He joined the neurology faculty at Harvard in 1983. Dr. Beal was Professor of Neurology at the Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Neurochemistry laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital before moving to Cornell. Dr. Beal's research has focused on the mechanism of neuronal degeneration in Alzheimer's Disease, Huntington's Disease, Parkinson's Disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Dr. Beal is the author or co-author of more than 300 scientific articles and more than 125 books, book chapters and reviews. He serves on the editorial boards of seven journals, the Journal of Neurochemistry, the Annals of Neurology, Journal of Molecular Neuroscience, Experimental Neurology and Neurobiology of Disease. Dr. Beal's research has focused on the mechanism of neuronal degeneration in Alzheimer's Disease, Huntington's Disease, Parkinson's Disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He has also been working on the development of novel neurochemical assays for assessing oxidative damage for use in clinical trials of new therapies for these disorders.

Dr. Beal is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honorary Society and received the Derek Denny-Brown Neurological Scholar Award of the American Neurologic Association. He has served on the Council of the American Neurologic Association and on the Science Advisory Committees of the Hereditary Disease Foundation, Huntington's Disease Society of America, Parkinson's Disease Study Group, Parkinson' Disease Foundation, Bachman-Strauss Foundation, The ALS Association, and the American Health Assistance Foundation. Dr. Beal is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the Namtional Academy of Sciences.

Selected Recent Papers (downloadable in Adobe Acrobat format*):

1) Energetics in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases

2) Mitochondrial DNA mutations in complex I and tRNA genes in Parkinson's disease

3) Neuroprotective Effects of Creatine in a Transgenic Mouse Model of Huntington's Disease

*If you don't have Acrobat Reader 3.0 or higher, you can download it from Adobe's website.