User:A Claudio Cuello

Augusto Claudio G. Cuello OC, MD, D.Sc, FRSC, FMedSci Augusto Claudio G. Cuello OC, MD, D.Sc, FRSC, FMedSci is Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics and the Charles E. Frosst/Merck Chair in Pharmacology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and Visiting Professor at the Oxford University Department of Pharmacology.[1][2]

BIOGRAPHY – Early Training and Professional Activities
Augusto Claudio G. Cuello (better known as “Claudio Cuello”) obtained his Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) in 1965 from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) in Argentina. He started research and training in Neuroscience in UBA as a medical student under Eduardo De Robertis (discoverer of synaptic vesicles) and Amanda Pellegrino de Iraldi (trained by Pio Del Rio Hortega, disciple of Ramon y Cajal). Soon after receiving his M.D., he joined the Argentine Antarctic Institute for the 1966 Antarctic Campaign where he reported a circa-annual cycle of the pineal gland in the Weddell seal (see Seals of the World by Judith King, 1983). Upon his return from the Antarctic, he joined the Laboratory of Neurobiology directed by Juan H Tramezzani at the Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine (created by the late Nobel Laureate Bernardo Houssay). From 1970 to 1973 he was successively trained in Neuroendocrinology under William F Ganong at University of California in San Francisco (UCSF), USA with an NIH Fogarty International Post-Doctoral Fellowship and he was later trained in Biochemical Pharmacology under Leslie Iversen (in the Julius Axelrod tradition) at the Cambridge MRC Neurochemical Pharmacology Unit (NCPU), England, with a Fellowship from the CONICET (Argentina). Upon his return to Argentina in 1974, he took an Assistant Professorship at the UBA Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry. Given the violent political environment in Argentina at the time, he self-exiled in England in 1975 taking a position as MRC Scientific Staff at the Cambridge Neurochemical Pharmacology Unit (NCPU), a unit which evolved into the current Neurobiology Division of the Cambridge MRC Lab of Molecular Biology. From 1978 to 1985 he was Lecturer in Neuropharmacology and Neuroanatomy at Oxford University as well as E.P. Abraham Senior Research Fellow and Medical Tutor at the Oxford Lincoln College (founded in 1427). In 1985 he accepted an invitation to Chair the McGill University Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics (P&T) in Montreal, Canada, a position he held until 2000. During his Chairmanship the McGill P&T Department gained considerable international visibility. In October 2003, he was named the inaugural Charles E. Frosst/Merck Research Chair in Pharmacology at McGill University, supported by an endowment from the Frosst family and Merck Canada, a position he still holds to this day.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
He has contributed over 400 scientific publications for which he has been recognized by the American Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) as “Highly Cited Neuroscientist”. His current Hirsch-Index is 92 Google Scholar with over 29,000 citations PRESENT: Dr. Cuello currently directs a multidisciplinary lab at McGill University largely focused on the continuum of Alzheimer’s pathology as reflected in human brain material and in body fluids as well as in advanced transgenic models of the Alzheimer’s-like amyloid pathology and tauopathy, which are generated in his lab. He leads a research team searching for the earliest biochemical-pathological events of the Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology, trying to elucidate the brain mechanism of the activity-dependent release of NGF as a prohormone as well as its conversion to mature NGF and ultimate degradation in the extracellular space. These investigations have led to the discovery of a metabolic deregulation in the AD pathology revealing a defect in the maturation of the biologically active NGF and its exacerbated degradation in the AD pathology(Video animation explaining the NGF metabolic pathway first presented at the Rita Montalcini event in Torino February 2018- https://meetings.ami.org/2018/project/ngf-metabolism-in-alzheimers-disease/. An aspect which shows promise in revealing biomarkers of the “preclinical” AD pathology. His lab is interested in the early, disease aggravating, components of the Alzheimer’s pathology and in therapeutic strategies to halt its progression.

HISTORICALLY: Dr. Cuello made early contributions to the dendritic release of neurotransmitters, and to the localization and role of central and peripheral neuropeptides, the trophic factor-induced repair and synaptogenesis and to novel applications of monoclonal antibodies in the neurosciences. He developed the first radioenzymatic assay to detect catecholamine, introduced novel brain microdissection procedures, made early contributions to the hybridoma technology with Cesar Milstein (e.g “bi-specific monoclonal antibodies”) and to the standardization of immunohistochemical procedures, best reflected in Immunohistochemistry I, 1983 and Immunohistochemistry II, 1993, (Ed. A.C. Cuello), John Wiley, NY.

COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLICATIONS
For a list of all of Dr. Cuello’s publications, please refer to the US National Library of Medicine from the National Institutes of Health. Publication List

SPECIAL HONORS - Awards and Recognitions
● Heinz Lehman Award Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology;● 1997, Novartis Senior Research Award in Pharmacology, Pharmacological Society of Canada;● 1997, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada;● 2000, Doctor in Medicine Honoris Causa Kuopio University, Finland;● 2010, Named Officer of the Order of Canada● 2012, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal ● 2013, Inducted as Foreign Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine and Surgery of Murcia, Spain; ● 2014, The Chancellor’s Award in Neurosciences, Louisiana State University, USA ● “2015 RAICES (Roots) Award”, Argentine Ministry of Science of Technology● 2018, Elected as Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences London UK.

REFERENCES –External Links

 * Further details of Dr. Cuello’s life experience and of his academic and scientific evolution until the year 2000 can be found in a publication sponsored by the Society for Neuroscience: “The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography” (Ed. L. Squires, Academic Press, NY, 2001). http://www.medicine.mcgill.ca/pharma/cuellolab/docs/Autobiography-SfN-2004.pdf
 * Autobiography in Spanish: Reseňas Tomo 7 https://aargentinapciencias.org/publicaciones/revista-resenas/resenas-tomo-7-no-1-2019/