Jonathan D Geiger
Department of Basic Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, USA
Dr. Geiger came to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 1982 to conduct post-doctoral training with Dr. Frank LaBella in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics. In 1984 he accepted an appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba. In 1989, he was promoted to Associate Professor and in 1994 he was promoted to full Professor. In 1999, he founded and until 2003 was the Director of the Division of Neurovirology and Neurodegenerative Disorders at the St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre. In 2003, he was recruited back to UND as Chair of the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology and Therapeutics and PI on a neuroscience COBRE grant. He has consistently held multiple federal operating grants simultaneously throughout his career, and received highly prestigius Scholarship and Scientist awards from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). He is currently funded by grants from the NIH. The main focus of his research continues to be on brain energy metabolism in general and purines in particular, regulation of levels of intracellular calcium with emphasis on intracellular pools of calciu, and the control of neuronal cell life and death.
Currently, his laboratory has the following research interests: (1) The ability of calcium in endosomes/lysosomes to influence capacitative influx of calcium and calcium-induced calcium release from ER and mitochondria; (2) The role of endosome/lysosome dysfunction in animal models of Alzheimer's disease, HIV-1 associated dementia and inclusion body myositis; (3) The ability of caffeine to block adenosine receptors and protect against blood brain barrier dysfunction in animal models of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease; and (4) The role of brain energy metabolism (with particular emphasis on adenosine and ATP) in the pathogenesis of epilepsy and neurodegenerative diseases. He has published over 140 manuscripts and has delivered over 100 invited talks worldwide. He continues to serve on multiple grant review committees including those for the NIH and the CIHR.
