UMass lands leading MGH researcher

University of Massachusetts Medical School and its high-powered RNAi research team have lured a top Boston physician-scientist to head its academic and clinical neurology departments, the school announced today.

Dr. Robert H. Brown Jr. (left), who identified gene mutations linked to the neuromuscular disease ALS, is leaving Massachusetts General Hospital after 30 years to take on his new roles in Worcester. He has already been working with UMass scientists to develop therapies for neurodegenerative diseases based on RNA interference, a gene-silencing mechanism discovered by UMass researcher and Nobel laureate Craig C. Mello.

Brown called Mello remarkable for his commitment to using basic science in the form of RNAi research to ameliorate human suffering.

"We do basic lab work on the genetics of these diseases," Brown said in an interview. "The question is, after 30 years and five or six genes, can we now find new ways to treat the problems they present?"

Brown, a physician and a scientist, founded the Day Neuromuscular Laboratory and also directs the Muscular Dystrophy Association Clinic at Mass. General and is a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. He will chair neurology at UMass Medical School and its clinical partner, UMass Memorial Medical Center, when he arrives in October.

He holds degrees from from Amherst College, Harvard Medical School, and Oxford University, where he received a doctorate in neurophysiology.