Alfred L. George, Jr., MD
A.N. Richards Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology
Director of the Center for Pharmacogenomics
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Dr. George is the A.N. Richards Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology, and Director of the Center for Pharmacogenomics at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Dr. George received his medical education at The University of Rochester (M.D. 1982) followed by residency training at Vanderbilt University and a clinical fellowship at University of Pennsylvania. He developed expertise in the molecular genetics of ion channels initially as a research fellow in Lausanne, Switzerland, then later as a fellow in the Departments of Medicine, Biochemistry & Biophysics and Institute for Neurological Sciences at University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. George joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University in 1992, and was promoted to the rank of full Professor 6 years later. In 1999, he established the Division of Genetic Medicine and served as Division Chief until 2014. He was named the Grant W. Liddle Professor of Medicine in 1999. In 2004, he became the founding Director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Genomics. In addition to his administrative duties, Dr. George was the Scientific Director of the Vanderbilt DNA Sequencing Facility from 2001 to 2011 and led efforts to implement next-generation sequencing resources. Dr. George was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation in 1998 and to the Association of American Physicians in 2001. He served as ASCI Councilor from 2000 to 2003. Dr. George was a recipient of the Lucille P. Markey Scholar Award in Biomedical Sciences, American Heart Association Established Investigator Award, the Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, and he was elected as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dr. George has been a pioneer in elucidating the genetics and pathogenesis of channelopathies – disorders caused by mutations in ion channel genes. His work focuses on genetic disorders caused by voltage-gated ion channel mutations that are responsible for disorders of membrane excitability including diseases affecting muscle, heart and brain that result in abnormal muscle contraction, cardiac arrhythmias, sudden death, epilepsy and related neurodevelopmental disorders. He currently directs the NIH/NINDS funded Channelopathy-associated Epilepsy Research Center without Walls. Dr. George has been involved from the beginning of the channelopathy field making enduring contributions to revealing the molecular genetic basis for several disorders, elucidating the functional consequences of dozens of mutant ion channels and helping to translate discoveries into new therapeutic strategies for these orphan diseases.