Javier Stern, Leading Neuro-Inflammation Expert, Joins Georgia State Faculty
Dr. Javier Stern, a distinguished researcher in autonomic and neuroendocrine neuroscience, with a particular focus on neuro-inflammation, has been named a faculty member in Georgia State University’s Neuroscience Institute.
Stern joins Georgia State from Augusta University, where he had been a professor of physiology.
Stern’s work lies at the intersection of physiology and neuroscience. He studies inflammation in the brain and how it may play a role in cardio-metabolic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity, as well as in neuro-psychiatric disorders. His research seeks to understand how neuro-inflammation contributes as a common mechanism to the development of these conditions, and to what extent the inflammatory process in the brain is involved.
“Dr. Stern has an outstanding international reputation, and Georgia State is excited to welcome him to our faculty,” said Dr. James Weyhenmeyer, vice president for research and economic development at Georgia State. “His work is critical to our understanding of the factors that contribute to major disorders such as depression, autism, obesity and Alzheimer’s disease.”
Stern said the potential to collaborate with other world-class scientists in the fields of immunology, neuroscience, inflammation and microbiology is what drew him to Georgia State.
“I’m excited to work with faculty in the Neuroscience Institute and other university research centers,” he said. “Having access to these individuals will allow us to better tackle the problem of neuro-inflammation.”
Stern was recruited to Georgia State as part of the Next Generation Program, which aims to build strength around core and emerging research that has strategic importance to the university.
“Dr. Stern’s research interest will complement Georgia State’s already strong biomedical research on metabolic and cardiovascular disease in the Department of Biology and the Institute of Biomedical Sciences,” said Dr. Geert de Vries, associate vice president for research and economic development and past director of the Neuroscience Institute. “He is an ideal candidate to strengthen clinically relevant neuroscience research at the university.”
Stern received the Distinguished Research Award from the Georgia Regents Research Institute in 2014. He was also given the Latin American Initiative Award from the American Physiological Society in 2011. He is a member of the Society of Neuroscience, the American Physiological Society and the American Society of Neuroendocrinology, and is a reviewing editor for the Journal of Physiology.
Stern earned his M.D. and his Ph.D. in physiology from the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. He performed his postdoctoral training at the University of Tennessee in Memphis.
