Draft:Thomas D Bird

Thomas D Bird: The father of Neurogenetics
Thomas Dwight Bird is a medical doctor and researcher known as the father of neurogenetics. For more than 50 years he has founded and contributed to a vast array of programs at the University of Washington and VA Puget Sound Healthcare system that have changed the field of neurogenetics. In 1974 he founded the neurogenetic clinic as UW which is still thriving today, along with the Huntington's Disease Center of Excellence and Muscular Dystrophy Clinic. Dr. Bird and his various teams have discovered many relevant gene polymorphs and mutations, including a PSEN2 mutation in familial Alzheimer's disease. His team and two groups in the UK co-discovered mutations in MAPT, the tau protein responsible for a form of frontotemporal dementia. His teams also discovered mutations in the PRKCG gene responsible for spinocerebellar ataxia type 14, SAMD9L mutations causing ataxia with pancytopenia, and ADCY5 mutations responsible for a combination of chorea and dystonia.

Early Career
Dr. Bird was born in Newark and raised in western New York. With his grandfather as inspiration he studied psychology at Dartmouth and completed his MD at Cornell University. He and his wife Roz then moved to the Pacific Northwest where Dr. Bird began his residency at the UW. After completing his fellowship he went on to found the adult neurogenetics clinic.

Dr. Bird also began working as a neurologist as the VA Puget Sound during this time, managing duel appointments between the VA and UW. He went on to become the chief of neurology at the VA.

Retirement
In retirement Dr. Bird still plays an active role advising on many of the academic groups he helped to found, including the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and Clinicopathological Correlation Conference.

Colleagues, Mentors, and Mentees

 * Arno Motulsky
 * Judith Hall
 * Gerard Schellenberg
 * Ellen Wijsman
 * Ephrat Levy-Lahad
 * Dong-Hui Chen
 * Wendy Raskind
 * Debby Tsuang
 * Jim Leverenz
 * Amelia Schultz